May 2010

Gross

Glenn Beck says all the time that people should leave families alone. But, I guess it didn\’t stop him from making fun of Malia Obama on his radio show. Dude, she\’s 11. You\’re making fun of a little girl; that\’s just sick. Via Media Matters, above is some audio, and a partial transcript below: BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy? Daddy? Daddy, did you plug the hole yet? Daddy? PAT GRAY (co-host): (imitating Obama) No I didn’t, honey. BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy, I know you’re better than [unintelligible] GRAY: (imitating Obama) Mm-hmm, big country. BECK: (imitating Malia) And I...

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New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Ain’t Free” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Roger \”Life of the Party\” Cohen\’s great piece \”Hell in the Islamic Republic,\” in...

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Morning Constitutional – Friday, 28 May 2010

Good morning, everybody. Could Lady Gaga have…lupus? Now, your morning constitutional: President Obama is visiting Louisiana Friday to assess the ecological disaster caused by the oil spill in the Gulf. U.S. officials and BP believe the spill has been patched, although they will not know for sure for a couple days. The spill is believed to be the worst in U.S. history. And here I thought Rand Paul loved the Constitution. The House of Representatives on Thursday voted for an amendment to a military funding bill to repeal the \”don\’t ask, don\’t tell\” policy banning gays from...

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Live-Trolling the Revolution

Tuesday, the GOP rolled out a new website, AmericaSpeakingOut.com, which solicits new ideas from the public and allows this very same public to give the ideas a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. They’re very, very proud and excited about this. “I would expect the ideas that come out of this Web site and the involvement of our members will lead to ideas that we can attempt to implement today,” House Minority Leader John Boehner proclaimed. “We want to continue to offer better solutions to address the problems that America is facing, and we see this as a giant step forward,...

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Have you met Les Phillip, the American patriot running for Congress from Alabama?

The newest in our unofficial series where we meet candidates and look at their awesome advertisements, I’d like you to meet Les Phillip, who vows to protect America from enemies both foreign and domestic: Honestly, I thought we were done with the whole “Obama-pallin’-around-with-terrorists” thing, but I guess nothing wins quite like the classics. Like an opening band playing ’80s covers, I guess you’ve got to give the people what they know.

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New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Ain’t Free” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Gail \”The Colander\” Collins, who in her column \”Who Wants to Elect a Millionaire?\”...

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Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 27 May 2010

Good morning, folks. Conan\’s writers are getting their own comedy special on TBS in June. Now, your morning constitutional: \”Top Kill\” method effective at stopping the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, says Coast Guard admiral. A bomb disguised as a pack of juice exploded in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, killing seven and injuring at least 40. Despite recently being called out for saying he served in Vietnam when he didn\’t, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is still popular in Connecticut and leads former wrestling executive Linda McMahon in the race for the Senate...

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A lesson in sportsmanship: Dominant high school softball team forfeits to help out struggling new team

Because, sometimes you just want to hear a story of people being awesome: It happened at a junior varsity girls’ softball game in Indianapolis this spring. After an inning and a half, Roncalli was womanhandling inner-city Marshall Community. Marshall pitchers had already walked nine Roncalli batters. The game could’ve been 50-0 with no problem. It’s no wonder. This was the first softball game in Marshall history. A middle school trying to move up to include grades 6 through 12, Marshall showed up to the game with five balls, two bats, no helmets, no sliding pads, no cleats,...

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Airplane! and Zero Hour!

Surely, you can’t be serious. Honestly, until finding this clip today, I had no idea how much of a connection Zero Hour! (straight outta 1957) has with far more widely known Airplane! (1980). I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley. Apparently, it’s a sort-of remake, and the makers actually bought the rights to Zero Hour. Who knew? Brought to you with hopes of encouraging appreciation for the finer comedies.

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Poem of the Week

I can’t believe it’s already the end of May.  Or that it’s almost 90 degrees here in DC.  Anyway, despite the August-like-heat, it’s peak wedding season: I went to one last weekend and am going another this weekend, and pretty much everyone I know seems to be attending weddings as well.  Yay for newlyweds!  And hideous bridesmaids’ dresses!  And personalized napkins!  And sentimental speeches!  And, you know, love and all that.  So for this week’s dose of poetry, I picked out this sweet one by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. It appears in his 2008 collection...

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