Here is Jon Stewart showing Betsy McCaughey to be a complete liar.
Of course, Andrew Sullivan thought that it was valuable to publish her lies in 1993, and she was rewarded by becoming the NY Lieutenant Governor, and is still treated as someone who should be talked to.
Most of the family has seen the new Star Trek film, and reviews have been circulating via email, some positive, and some negative, but my younger brother, Daniel had the best statement about the franchise ever:
I AM SOOOOO SICK OF THE WHOLE SPOCK INNER CONFLICT BETWEEN HIS HUMAN AND VULCAN HALF. Seen it in 3 years of orginal Trek, 6+ movies, even stolen for that stupid android Data! ENOUGH ALREADY. Have him shoot a moose, drink some bud, and read “Juggs” magazine and GET OVER IT!
Word.
Here he interviews and Jon Cohn on healthcare reform:
It appears that Rick Santorum* is making the pilgrimage to Iowa, indicating that he is looking to run for President in 2012:
Add former Sen. Rick Santorum to the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates.
POLITICO has learned Santorum will visit first-in-the-nation Iowa this fall for a series of appearances before the sort of conservative activists who dominate the state GOP’s key presidential caucuses.
While this might not be good for the nation, or for the caucus goers of Iowa, or any attempt to have sanity return to the Republican party in 2012, it is good for late night talk show hosts, columnist Dan Savage,† and anyone interested interested in heaping scorn on nonsensical quotes from Republicans, like yours truly.
This promises to be as entertaining as the Fred Thompson Clown show of 2008.
Of course, it could go horribly awry, as my father illustrated in 1968, when he noted, “Those stupid bastards nominated Richard Nixon! There is no way that we can lose now.”‡
*The definition of Santorum is, “That frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”.
†Who coined said definition of “Santorum.”
‡Piss poor political forecasts run in my family, so do not take my predictions as gospel.
We have some pieces of good news. The 1st is that non-farm productivity rose at a 6.4% annual rate, the highest rate since 2003, the 2nd is that wholesale inventories fell at more than twice the predicted rate, and the 3rd is that the Hotel Industry’s Pulse index (HIP) rose in July, for the first time in 19 months.
Both of these numbers are generally positive, though the numbers for productivity include a reduction in hours worked and worker pay, and a reduction in inventories is only a good thing to the degree to which we get to the end of that process.
On the less encouraging side of the spectrum, we have demand for US Treasuries increasing, which indicates a return to risk aversion, and the Baltic Dry Index has fallen for a 9th straight day, which indicates a big drop in international trade.
In energy, we have oil falling below $70/bbl, and in currency, the dollar fell, particularly against the Yen.
The makers of pr0n are complaining about how the downturn has hit the bottom line.
When people don’t have money for erotica, people just don’t have money.
Or so I’ve been told. I never touch the stuff myself……
Shouting pitch man Billy Mays dead at 50.
Ed McMahon a few datys back, and now Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
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It was my just-turned-12-year-old daughter’s turn to choose a movie, and she chose Twilight.
Kristen Stewart … Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson … Edward Cullen
Billy Burke … Charlie Swan
Ashley Greene … Alice Cullen
Nikki Reed … Rosalie Hale
Jackson Rathbone … Jasper Hale
Kellan Lutz … Emmett Cullen
Peter Facinelli … Dr. Carlisle Cullen
Cam Gigandet … James
Taylor Lautner … Jacob Black
Anna Kendrick … Jessica Stanley
Michael Welch … Mike Newton
Christian Serratos … Angela Weber
Gil Birmingham … Billy Black
Elizabeth Reaser … Esme Cullen
It’s a Vampire film, based on the book, which Natalie read, and enjoyed immensely, and it’s very much geared towards tween girls, and so she loved the book, and so chose the movie.
I really tried to talk her out of it, but she was having none of that, and it is a kind of a reward for her reading, so what can a parent do..
The plot is straight forward, Vampire meets girl, they fall in love, damsel in distress ensues.
For what it was, and I would not see this sort of film except under familial duress, it’s of fairly high quality, well shot, and well acted.
I think that the combat sequences could have been a bit better, but I’m a big fan of Kurasawa’s filming of combat in The Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, which has a level of realism that would not match the target audience (12 year old girls).
It is what it is, and if you like what that is, and I really don’t, you’ll enjoy it.
The only surprises were that there were some legitimately funny bits to it, and I felt no need to claw my eyes out.
Futurama is returning to production, with 26 new episodes premiering in mid 2010!
Good news everyone!
I invented a device that makes you read this in your head using my voice!
H/t Extremepreneur for the joke.
James Bond’s Astin-Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, even though it no longer has any gadgets.
I assume that this puts me in a not particularly select group of people, numbering in what might be the hundreds of millions.
Of course, I also wish that Q had been my uncle. Just imagine the birthday gifts….”It’s a pen, Matthew, but it’s also is a laser and a poison dart gun.!
Newsweek looks at the health claims on Oprah Winfrey’s show, and concludes that they are snake oil.
Good. Hopefully, we will see more of this from the media.
The third node of the space station will be named, “Tranquility,” not Colbert, as the public demanded.
By way of a sop, they will name a treadmill after America’s most courageous journalist.
I profoundly am disappointed in NASA, though I really want the mission patch.
It’s an amusing site, and would probably be more amusing if it were in English, I’m sure that I am missing the finer points.
In any case, here is samurai Obama, and him battling Dick Cheney:
So I’m picking up some groceries at the local Wegmans, and I’m waiting in line, and then I see it…The cover of OK Magazine, and it’s got Kathy Griffin in a bikini!!!! (click image for full size…if you dare)
Tekeli Li!!!!!
Tekeli Li!!!!!
Tekeli Li!!!!!
Tekeli Li!!!!!
What can I say, but “you go girl,” funnier than Governor Paterson, but Stewart is a professional.
I guess that the lede is that the consumer confidence numbers are out, and that they remain near record lows, at 26, just one point above the all time low reported in February.
If that were not enough, we now have a survey indicating that consumer spending may fall by $1 trillion after the recession is over (by way of perspective, the US total GDP is about $14 trillion) according to the AlixPartners Long-Range Economic Outlook Survey.
That’s a 7% haircut on GDP, exclusive of the secondary effects, closed stores, warehouses, etc., once the economy recovers…..Great googly moogly!
In the meantime, I don’t think that a whole bunch of people will be tapping their home equity, as the Case-Shiller home price indices show a 19% drop in home prices, though it appears that defaults are abating, as private mortgage insurers saw defaults, and claims, fall in February, the first decrease since June, 2008.
Additionally, 2nd home sales fell in 2008, down to 30% of total home sales, from 40% in 2005, and more of these buyers are paying cash, which implies that a lot of the contraction in this market is an inability to find mortgages.
In terms of the general state of the economy, the Restaurant Peformance Index is showing the 16th straight month of contraction (h/t Calculated Risk), and the Philadelphia Fed State Coincident indices have shown a decline in all 50 states (pdf), for both the past month and the past three months (again h/t Calculated Risk).
Meanwhile, we have an indication that the Bank of England is looking at significant inflation, they have adjusted their pension investments to account for it, so I think that they expect the £ Sterling to fall, and inflation to increase in the UK.
In any case, we now have the chief economist for the OECD suggesting that the Federal Reserve would take aggressive action against a precipitous fall in the dollar, and work to maintain its position as a reserve currency.
I think that this is more an attempt to talk up the dollar than anything else, because protecting the dollar would, over the long term at least, require higher interest rates, which would have the economy collapsing like overcooked broccoli.
In any case, the dollar was down today, largely because the flight to safety yesterday following Obama’s announcement that GM and Chrysler were on notice is now over.
Oil was up too, though it’s still a bit under $50/bbl.
Clips of actors who appeared both in Star Trek and Wild Wild West.
So, it’s finally opening night for the Reisterstown Theater Project’s production of Big River, a musical based on Mark Twain’s classic Huck Finn.
My wife is not up to going to the theater today, so we will see it tomorrow.
My daughter is in the chorus, and she has one line, and she loves being in the play, though I think that if she wants to do this again, we will wait until school is out, because with rehearsals, homework, etc. she is running herself ragged.
It’s an amateur production, though it’s fairly well done, with the strongest actor playing the runaway slave Jim.
What news anchors do during the ad break.
