Conan vs. Colbert vs. Stewart

Since the writer’s strike, I’ve been hooked on watching Conan slowly unravel as he does his show without writers. He’s had an ongoing talk show feud with Stephen Colbert over who made Mike Huckabee popular. It’s expanded over the past week or so to include John Stewart. Then, last night both Colbert and Stewart came on Conan’s show to stage a fight over who actually made Huckabee. A good time was had by all.

Today, the NYTimes had an interview with Conan about the feud over Huckabee. The article ends with this quote from Conan: “It certainly helped that all three of us are in a period of our careers where we’re looking for content.”

Amazing. I highly recommend watching Conan; he’s waaaay funnier without writers and is slowly losing his mind on broadcast television.

Response to the Dem’s Response to the State of the Union

Some quick thoughts about our fearless leader’s State of the Union address last night and the Democrat’s response:

1. President Bush mentioned a plan to let people in the armed forces transfer any education benefits to their spouse or children. Sounds like a great step in the right direction. You know, treat our soldiers like human beings with benefits like any other career. If only they could work out that whole healthcare thing.
2. Gov. Sebelius’ response to the Pres’ speech had this interesting line about green development: “But more than just recover, the Kansans who live in Greensburg are building green, rebuilding a better community for their children and grandchildren; making shared sacrifices and investments for the next generation.” Why does everyone think being “green” and “environmentally friendly”necessarily comes with sacrifices? How come no one talks about being green as a means to become economically viable instead of a hindrance to our activities? No wonder getting Congress to enact environmental policies has proved largely futile; whenever someone mentions the environment, it’s in the context of limiting or sacrificing what we have.
3. Another quote from Sebelius: “The last five years have cost us dearly in lives lost, in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same, in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere. America’s foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies.” What? Spending $500 Billion on the military means there’s less money to go around?! I don’t get it. How come people don’t like our foreign policy? Is it because they were disappointed the surge wasn’t an energy drink?

Comments?

Naomi Wolf in creeping fascism

I’ve been showing this to people and I’m curious what you guys think. One link is to a lecture by Naomi Wolf on the 10 steps every would-be despot takes to close down an open society, and how those steps are underway in America already. The other link is to an article with the same points if you don’t want to sit through the 45 minutes. I’m interested in any thoughts people have, I guess my main question is: How seriously do you take this? Are we/our freedoms seriously threatened? Or is this just inflated rhetoric?

video:

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/11/01/creeping-fascism/

article:

www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

Some Light Reading

First of all, I just found this when browsing through the news.  I recommend opening the pdf and just scrolling through it to see how immense it is:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2211905,00.html 

Secondly, Dylan, the Kates, and I saw a book reading here in Seattle last night (http://www.elliottbaybook.com/events/nov07/rosenblum.jsp).  It was given by Mort Rosenblum, a highly experienced former AP correspondent who just released a book called Escaping Plato’s Cave:  How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens our Survival.  He gave a pretty good talk, even if he was a bit spacey from doing this talk several times through the day.

The jist is that we as Americans ignore what happens around us, unless it involves some skanky pop star, and are not intellectually engaged enough to understand the trends in the world around us.  He talks a little bit about how we view the world compared to those in many other nations (this guy has been all over the world for the past 30 years), why we view the world (or don’t) the way we do, and some steps we may take to counteract this.  I’m excited to read the book, and will give a review once I finish it.

“Pig Rearing”

Funny letter on British agricultural government subsidies.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/28/85550/8410

Maybe this is the business we should start together.  I am confident that we could set up a similar deal with our own glorious USDA.