Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy met today to joke around, exchange friendly shoulder-punches, compare pecs, and say some serious stuff about war.
Now get Carla and Michelle together.
[Posted by Mallory]
Category Archives: politics
bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iran.
Courtesy of my boyfriend Annie, our NYC correspondent, take a look at this Politico article about McCain’s off-color humor (which we’ve discussed a lot at SWTCTW…here and here and here). Here’s an excerpt:
McCain’s humor, by contrast, makes him the political counterpart of the radio host Don Imus (whom he has defended): It’s sharp, unrehearsed and, at times, way, way over the line. This cycle, he’s drawn winces, and worse, for everything from a joking reference to domestic violence to a now-notorious little ditty about bombing Iran. Earlier in his political career, the Arizona press reported that he’d cracked a rape joke that would now probably end any politician’s career, a joke his aides then and now say he doesn’t recall making.
[Posted by Mallory]
colorado’s got mountains, mccain, and ME!
In case you hadn’t heard amidst the news of the Barackstar hanging out in Germany, John McCain will be in the great state of Colorado today. Woo hoo! While driving to work this morning, I passed the Grand Hyatt where McCain will speak to a group of veterans, and I was relieved, for his sake, to see that there were actually reporters there. (We’re clearly not huge fans of Johnny here at SWTCTW, but I’m starting to almost pity the old guy. Did you hear about how he watched Obama’s speech to four billion Germans from a German restaurant in Ohio? Oh, John.)
I wanted to liveblog McCain’s speech today, but then I realized that a) I’m not a veteran and thus wouldn’t be allowed into the event, b) I have to work today, and c) even if those other two things weren’t true, my laptop is so fragile and close to death that it cannot leave the house. So, no liveblogging.
[Posted by Mallory]
richard simmons: sweatin’ to the congress?
Here is a delightful thought for your Thursday afternoon! Fitness master and supreme god of the tacky workout videos Richard Simmons alluded to his dreams of someday being a member of the US Congress. He’s already at the Capitol–today he testified to the House Education and Labor Committee about childhood obesity. Here is what went down. This, of course, comes from CNN’s Political Ticker.
In a half-serious, half-jocular tone, Simmons described his approach to the hearing, saying, “I want to have the respect of a congressman, I want to talk like a congressman, and maybe, someday, I’ll be a congressman.”
But you already have our respect RS! People don’t respect congressmen and women that much. In fact, they are the least liked branch of government! I bet more people watch your workout videos (god love them) than C-SPAN. Then, he cited Jesse Ventura as an example of celebrity-gone-politician. Just me, but if I was going to make a case for that, I don’t think I would use “The Body” as my example. Maybe Ronald Reagan? Whatev. He continued,
“After this congressional hearing, I will go home,” Simmons said, “I will talk with my Dalmatian dogs, I will pray to God and then I’ll see what else I can do to help.”
He would have dalmatians. And he would talk to them.
I personally think it would be kind of fun to have him in the House, as long as he’s right on with his policy and votes the way I want him to. Haha. I mean, this man has made millions of middle-aged people get off the couch and sweat to oldies, all while prancing around saying “I’m a pony! I’m a pony!” in short shorts. If elected, do you think he would wear a suit? The idea of Richard Simmons in anything other than shorts shorts just seems…unethical. That aside, just think of all the things he could inspire his fellow members of Congress to do! To prove how Richie can move mountains, I found a youtube video of his epic workout tapes, but somebody updated it and put it to the greatest song ever recorded–“Walk It Out” by DJ Unk. Haha. Anyway, enjoy. And in the great words of JFK, ask not what your country can do for you, but what Richard Simmons can do for your country.
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under celebrities, politics, random, YouTube
tales from my morning news stalk.
Good mornnnnnnnnnnning! I have completed my morning news/gossip stalk, and because blogging about each of these would take all day I’m putting it all together in one glorious post. Don’t you judge me.
So now we find out that Jesse Jackson not only threatened the testicles of Saint Barack, he used the N-word too. Ohhh, no you did not! Here is what he said: “See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based – I wanna cut his nuts out. … Barack – he’s talking down to black people — telling n——s how to behave.” Bill O’Reilly, who broke the original story said they didn’t use this part because it was unnecessary. He called the person who leaked this (they don’t know who it is…yet) a “weasel” (that’s the pot calling the kettle black, Billy!) and then put the fear of God in us all but especially the poor sniveling soul that will eventually be homeless and miserable– “I have the waterboard over here. … We’ll find out.” As some of my friends say, “things that are unsurprising.” You can read what I had to say before we learned Jesse dropped the N-bomb here.
But speaking of Barack, he pulled in a mere $52 Million for this quarter. No big deal. The Wonkette headline made me giggle: Hope Rides In On A $52 Million Unicorn. I assume the unicorn reference came from JibJab’s new video, which you can watch if you click here. Thoughts? Not as good as the Bush/Kerry one from 2004. But whatev.
One woman went for 20 years not knowing she had two monstrous tumors. When I say monstrous, I mean it. The tumors were just removed and she is now 140 lbs. lighter. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY POUNDS. Damn, girl. Maybe there are two tumors where my love handles are? I should get that checked out.
Tonight should be amazing for political dorks who love great American pastimes in DC. It is the yearly Congressional baseball game, where all the politicians look to appear cool and revert back to their high school days. That’s right, the Republican congressmen and the Democratic congressmen, in a rivalry almost as intense as the Red Sox and Yankees, play each other. This is usually humiliating for the Dems, as the Republicans win every year. BUT DEMOCRATS ARE GOOD AT SPORTS TOO, OKAY?!
In TeeVee news, Scrubs is coming back for another season! Hoooray! Katherine Heigl managed to keep her miserable character on Grey’s for another season.
And for movies, The Dark Knight opens soon. Read anything on it, and they tell you that Heath was amazing. HEEEEEEEEEATH. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I can’t wait. Also, Mal posted about ScarJo’s singing, so I felt this is a little relevant: Defamer made a list of the Top Ten Unlikely Vocal Performances from Non-Singing Actors. Ugh, I HATE Tom Cruise. He deserves to be on no list other than Top Creepiest Person of All Time.
Happy news stalking!
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under celebrities, movies, music, news, politics, pop culture, random, sports, TV
again, john, rape is NOT funny.
We knew that John McCain once called his wife a cunt and likes to hang out with people who say inappropriate things about rape, but looks like our favorite presumptive Republican nominee also likes himself a good rape joke. According to Wonkette, 1986 is not just the birth year of your two fearless bloggers, but it’s also the year a story about McCain’s tasteless rape joke appeared in the Tuscon Citizen. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to laugh:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
Because rape is nothing if not HI-larious.
[Posted by Mallory]
nyt op-ed roundup of the day.
Okay, so I really just want to write about two particular New York Times op-ed pieces, but let’s go ahead and call it a roundup because that sounds more bloggy and professional.
The first article that all of you must read is Nicholas Kristof’s “It Takes a School, Not Missiles.” Kristof talks about Greg Mortenson, “a frumpy, genial man from Montana” who has made it his mission to build schools (mostly for girls) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson is the author of the crazy popular book Three Cups of Tea, which I actually had not heard of until my grandma recommended it to me this weekend. I can’t wait to read it. I’ll give you one of the best excerpts from the article, and then I’ll let you read it yourself:
“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. … The thirst for education here is palpable.”
Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.
So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.
Here’s a photo of Mortenson and some of the kids he helped:
The second article I want to share with you was written by this obscure guest columnist for the Times, a United States senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. Saint B’s article is about his plan for Iraq. The article is worth reading for all those people who say that Obama is just some young punk who has no idea what he’s talking about and is going to send the world spiraling into chaos. Again, take a look at an excerpt, then go read the whole thing:
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
Well put, Barry. Well put.
And I know I’m not particularly ahead of the curve in talking about these articles — they are the top one and two most emailed articles on the NYT right now — but in case you don’t frequent the Times, I wanted to make sure you could take a look. Happy reading!
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under politics
words from wolff for your weekend.
Faithful readers, I’m back! I’m home from my annual family vacation up in the mountains, and I’m rested, ready to write, and armed with plenty of stories that I can use to blackmail my cousins one day.
I wrote a couple of posts last week about some interesting things I read in July’s issue of Oprah, and despite my shame at being so intrigued by magazine made for stay-at-home moms, I’m about to continue that trend. There’s one article from the magazine that I’ve been thinking about since I read it, and I wanted to share it with those of you who don’t faithfully read O Magazine (which, I suspect, includes most of you). The story comes from a collection of articles written to tell us all “Why Men Do Stupid Things.” At first glance, that title made me immediately skeptical and annoyed and aware of why I don’t typically read O. That being said, I read the section anyway and was quite impressed. (You can read about half of the articles on Oprah’s website.)
Unfortunately, the best and most thought-provoking article of the bunch is not on the website, and though I considered typing up the whole thing for your reading pleasure, I’m fairly certain that would break a bunch of copyright laws. Instead, I’ll sum up the story and leave you with a choice quote or two.
Oprah tells us that with a brief article, Tobias Wolff is going to tell us silly little women about war stories. Wolff fought in Vietnam, and he writes about an experience he had during the 1980s, when people were finally starting to talk about what happened during the war. He joins a discussion group with Ed, who also fought in Vietnam; Robert, who fought in Korea; and Will, who was a conscientious objector and had “refused the draft and performed alternate service as an orderly in a VA hospital.”
After some initial hesitation, the men begin talking, and they get caught up in their own stories. Wolff writes:
…Robert and Ed and I were topping each other with stories about the meanness of our garrison towns — at Fort Bragg we’d called the citizens of Fayetteville “Fayette Cong” — when I caught Will staring at us in despair.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
“What?”
“Making it sound like a lark. Like some great adventure. And you guys know better. No wonder kids keep joining up.”
I could see that he felt left out, perhaps at some instinctive level even rued missing the experience that bound us. But he was right. We knew better, yet could not speak of all this, even to deplore it, without giving it a certain glamour, the glamour of blood mystery and exclusive, ultimate fraternity.
I have never forgotten Will’s sadness, its profound ambiguity.
Yes. No wonder kids keep joining up.
To be sure, those are words worth thinking about these days.
[Posted by Mallory]
a little something for your weekend.
Unfortunately, I won’t be blogging much this weekend. But to get you through, I have compiled a list of links that I most likely would have blogged about or find interesting enough to share, and you’ll have to use your imagination to think of what Mal and/or I would say about them.
This story about siblings torn apart by the Holocaust and being reunited after 66 years made me cry more than watching the video of Christian the Lion. No jokes and nothing snarky to say–there is good in this world.
Here is an interesting piece on Wall-E. The first negative thing I’ve read and it brings up some valid points. Still haven’t seen the movie though. What do you think?
People are over medicated, and our dogs are next. Here is a piece from the NYT Magazine. Since I’m not going to, make all the jokes you want. Make me proud.
There’s going to be a DC version of “The Hills”. I’m pissed, because I wanted to be in it. My idea for a show title was just “The Hill”. Clever, I know. Ha. Shockingly, they went for more party oriented than political party oriented girls…
I love baby names, and I might give someone a candy bar or something to let me name their child. But give up a gas card? HELL NO. Have you seen the price of gas? This story is so wrong on so many levels. I LOVE IT. These people are nutso. Maybe I should do something like this. I bet I could come up with something better than Sunday Rose. Ugh.
And finally, a slideshow of supermodels then and now. Claudia Schiffer is still pretty hot. And girl don’t even get me started on Tyra.
Dunzo. Enjoy. Comment. Have adventures. Miss me. XOXO.
[Posted by Kathleen]
a nation of whiners, you say?
Here’s a little rant. One of John McCain’s top advisers, former Senator Phil Gramm, has called the recession a “mental recession” and our United States of America a “nation of whiners”. Well, alright. But last time I checked, sharing your experiences and concerns with presidential candidates didn’t make you a whiner, it shows you are an engaged patriot.
Also, I’m going to guess that Gramm has enough money to avoid feeling the stresses of recession. But some people can’t even afford pizza on the weekends. And that’s not right. Oh, and just a quick fact for you, Phil. Your job might be set, but millions of Americans are rapidly losing jobs. During the month of May, the US unemployment rate jumped to 5.5%–the biggest one-month increase in over 20 years. June wasn’t much better. It is estimated that 8.5 million Americans are currently unemployed. And maybe more because people have given up and stopped looking and after a few months are no longer factored in to the unemployment number. Wake up, Phil.
In McCain’s defense, he said he disagreed with Phil. And he made a funny! When asked if Gramm would have a place in a McCain administration, he said he would consider making him ambassador to Belarus. Oh, Johnny. But you were one-upped by Saint Barack, who quipped: “America already has one Dr. Phil. We don’t need another one when it comes to the economy.” Love you, B.
Oh, and just because I’m feeling frisky/had a lovely day at the lake and I’m in an excellent mood, here is a fun video of McCain looking more awkward than a 7th grader in sex-ed when asked about Viagra and birth control. His response is boring, but his response time? Priceless. Haha! Enjoy!
[Posted by Kathleen]
six words to change the world. 