I wonder if this is just a one-off or if they’re going to publish regularly. Either way:
- I want translations!
- Needs more donuts!
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Month: August 2009
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Ben Franklin’s Schedule
Of the Founding Fathers of the United States, my favourite is Ben Franklin. I’m a fan (and attempted emulator) of polymaths, and Ben was a supreme one, having been a writer, printer, political theorist and practitioner, scientist and engineer, soldier and statesman.
What better way to mark the beginning of what’s going to be a busy week for Yours Truly than by posting Ben Franklin’s daily schedule? Here it is, complete with his morning and evening questions, which we’d all do well to ask ourselves daily:
Some folks I know were discussing what he meant by “Addressing Powerful Goodness”, which he does at the start of the day. Someone supposed that it meant a morning constitutional, another thought it might be prayer and a wag suggested it might be “chopping the morning wood,” in that way that wags are wont to do.
Fans of the movie Dazed and Confused might prefer the notion that Ben Franklin liked to drop by George Washington’s place to smoke his fine weed (see this scene), and just for you, here’s a comic depicting just that, with both gentlemen talkin’ gangsta (be forewarned, it’s a little sweary):
Click the comic to see it at full size (courtesy of “highplainsgrifter”).
Most “Have you seen this cat?” posters don’t make me smile, but this one does…
Photo by Jason Carlin. Click to see it on its Flickr page.
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Plus Ca Change…
The strange accusations about Barack Obama coming from the American wingnut brigade – Socialist! Radical Muslim! Foreign-born! – are nothing new:
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The “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus” Trailer
A mega-shark! A giant octopus! A reference to the "Thrilla in Manila"! Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah (formerly Debbie) Gibson! What more could you possibly want from a movie?
(A tip of the hat to John Bristowe for pointing me to the video!)
Squeaky Fromme is free? Damn, I’m old.
Click the photo to see Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s Wikipedia entry.
(I wish I’d come up with the title, but alas, that clever turn of phrase is the name of a team that played at a trivia league in New York City last week.)
What a difference 16 months makes! (And wow, does the Daily Show have an amazing video archivist!)
Last night, the Daily Show did the public a great service by airing two clips. The first was from January 2008 featuring faux journalist Glenn Beck talking about how terrible the care he received at the hospital it was and how it reflected the sad state of the American healthcare system. In true Beck-ian fashion, his piece was called Beck from the Dead.
The second clip is from May 2009. Sixteen months later, the American healthcare system has become, in Beck’s own words, “the best in the world”. Now that the Socialist Kenyan Usurper is driving a movement to bring universal healthcare to the United States – the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t provide it to its citizens – it’s now the best system in the world, which the lefties are trying to dismantle. It’s quite impressive how it went from terrible to “best in the world” in so little time.
You really have to watch the clip to see Beck say one thing and then say the exact opposite thing afterwards, with the same fire and conviction. If you’re in Canada, you can watch the clip on the Comedy Network’s site; if you’re in the U.S. the Daily Show site has the clip.
It’s ironic that a show that purports to be a comedy show that just comments on current events is doing a better job of telling the truth than a network that purports to tell you the truth but ends up doing unintentional black humour.
Gawker sums up Glenn Beck perfectly in a couple of paragraphs:
This should serve as yet another bright, shining example of how much of an utter fraud Beck is. You gotta give the guy some credit though — he’s a charlatan’s charlatan, a near-perfect modern television bullshit artist who fully understands how the slightest glance, vocal inflection, or codeword can plant a seed deep down inside of a feeble mind and germinate.
But still, it’s hard not to watch this clip and come away feeling that he’s an even bigger piece of shit than you probably thought he was previously, because it’s just so goddamn obvious that the man will do or say anything to dig his hook even deeper into the sad dolts who tune into to his show each day seeking guidance.