Higgs Boson

"The Higgs boson has not been discovered yet, but its mass is 125 billion electron volts."

That's a joke that's making the round in physics circles. And as long as we're on humor, here's the Dilbert joke about the Higgs boson.

To show that he appreciates the subtle aspects of humor, Stephen continued with, "Speaking of not really being there, Mitt Romney." After weeks and weeks of all the political pundits saying Mitt would be the inevitable candidate for the Republicans, we had Super Tuesday and now everyone is saying it's still too close to call. This is very vexing to Stephen. The good news is that if it comes down to a draw and no one knows who to nominate and if they were to consider Sarah Palin, she "wouldn't close that door." One can only wonder what Palin as President would be like.

CNN is also vexed by the thought of an indecisive decision and so they had a virtual brokered convention. If you want to see how that went down, Jon Stewart had a segment on his show tonight about CNN and you can view his show online. (Of course, wait until tomorrow for that episode to be posted.) Stephen, on the other hand, conducted his own virtual convention, which did require a bit of imagination, but it was much better than CNN's convention. After Stephen's virtual convention was complete, the candidate was still, oh no, Mitt Romney!

Who is nine feet tall and has four arms? Willem Dafoe! But only when he' being Tars Tarkas. Willem Dafoe was the guest tonight and as usual, Stephen asked if he was an actor or a movie star. The way to know, according to Stephen, boils down to this: "Do you wait tables for a living?" Dafoe doesn't, therefore that makes him a movie star. The movie, of course, is John Carter.

O Beautiful For Spacious Skies

For amber waves of grain.

You probably remember how the rest of the song goes. If not, just catch one of Mitt Romney's speeches. Stephen had a clip of Romney's victory speech from last night, the part where Mitt recites the words to the song. (If it would have been Herman Cain, it would have been sung, but I digress.) Of course at first Stephen had the wrong clips of a different night, many different nights and speeches, of Mitt Romney reciting the words from "America, the Beautiful." I now think that Stephen was using humor to highlight the fact that Mitt seems to keep using those familiar and patriotic verses over and over again. It's almost like he has a plan to make that song his own.

I figured why not get a few facts about these spacious skies and amber waves to share with my readers. So, I Googled "O beautiful for spacious skies." Well, of course, near the top of the results, is an entry by trusty old Wikipedia for the song, "America, the Beautiful." Then I did a double take, for right after it, in the Google results, was a link to a YouTube video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the song. What's up with that? You do know that Romney is a Mormon, right? And then I looked at Google images. Not surprisingly, there were lots of images of spacious skies, lots of images of amber waves of grain, lots of images of patriotic things (flags, fireworks, soldiers, eagles), and then there it was. A photo of Mitt Romney! So then I went to a website to see the lyrics and there was an ad for Mitt Romney.

It's obvious Mitt is trying very hard to have people salivate whenever they hear that song. And to have them think of Mitt Romney. Other candidates will be associated with other things. Stephen even mentioned Rick Santorum. And who can hear Michele Bachmann's name without seeing a pair of false eyelashes? For Herman Cain, it was 9-9-9. For so many candidates, there is one thing that will always be identified with them. Mitt Romney must be trying very hard to choose what people think about when they think of him. Will it work? Come back in 11 months and ask me then.

Perhaps more interesting on the show, in fact, the best part of the show was Stephen at the FLICKTRONIC-TRON 5600. Man, Stephen has got flicking down to an art. CNN needs to practice their flicking or people will stop going to CNN for news and only get their news from The Colbert Report.

Later in the show, Stephen checked in with all his good friends at WOI-DT abc 5 News to find out what's happening in Des Moines, Iowa. The excitement was more than I could bear.

The guest tonight was John Heilemann, National Affairs Editor of New York Magazine. Thankfully, they did discuss the recent Iowa Caucus and all the candidates. Although Romney won by an 8-vote landslide, Santorum, in a three-way with two other men, was such a close second that you could almost call it a tie. Now many of them head up to New Hampshire and then on to South Carolina. The excitement keeps building. It will be a fun ride heading to November.

Much Less Desirable Candidate

Again, in an attempt to try to gain more viewers from the state of Minnesota, Stephen talked (briefly) about the Ol' T Paw, Tim Pawlenty. Apparently, Tim Pawlenty said on CNN, and I quote, "I'm running for President."

His campaign immediately tried to backtrack by saying that CNN reported the full quote out of context. Funny, because CNN showed video Tim Pawlenty saying it. It's not as if they edited and spliced and cut out parts of the conversation. They said there will be a formal announcement later this spring.

And yet, if there's uncertainty about whether or not he is running, then why does he have a campaign staffer? (See Benjamin Foster.) Anyway, after this "I'm running (flip) I'm not running (flop), Stephen has declared Tim Pawlenty to be a "Much Less Desirable Candidate."

Perhaps this would be a good time to remind Stephen that he can still decide to run again for president. I think Colbert could afford the money to run as a Republican. What is it, $5,000 or so?

Moving on.

Stephen had a whole segment on the marketing of beauty products to women. First you invent a need, then you manufacture the product. Latest company in that endeavor is Dove. They are trying to convince women that their armpits are ugly. And then, after only 5 days of using their deodorant, voila, they have beautiful armpits.

I'm not making that up. sheesh.

Of course, if you go to Colbert Nation and watch the show, you will see Stephen smear Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream Ice Cream on Veronica's armpit. You try having Ice Cream smeared on your armpit and keep smiling all the time. That is talent!

There was other good stuff on the show, including guest Morgan Spurlock to talk about product placement, but as soon as it was over, I headed for the kitchen cupboard. I don't know why, but I just had an overwhelming desire to eat some Doritos.

Awkward

Remember when Stephen was talking about Tim Pawlenty? (Also called TimMAY, Timbo, T Paw, and the Ol' T Paw.) Well it seems one of Pawlenty's first campaign decisions has turned out to be somewhat awkward. One of his aides in Iowa, Benjamin Foster, was arrested on charges of public intoxication and trespassing.

You can read about it here at CNN Politics - political ticker.

Also here at The Gazette, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa paper.

One more here at Pawlenty's home town paper - StarTribune.

Although Tim Pawlenty comes across as quite a boring person, it seems his staffer sure knows how to Par-ty.

Perhaps Benjamin Foster needs some "proper etiquette" training. Stephen is just the person to provide that service.

Update: Spelling of Ankeny in Iowa has been corrected. Thank you to An Iowan in Comments.