Mousetronaut

The unemployment rate has dropped. Not so surprising really, it has been coming down steadily. What's big about this small number is that it is now under 8%. It's at 7.8% now, so yes, that is lower than 8%. The reason that is making news is, for one thing, the Republicans have been kind of drawing attention for some time now that the rate is over 8% and now it isn't. So that's kind of a yikes moment. And the other thing is that some people have been saying the books are cooked. That is not a good recipe, believe me. Lots of fiber but not much flavor.

If you like to look at charts, here is a chart that shows private sector job growth. Personally, I love charts. You can see a whole bunch of information at a quick glance. This one shows a constant upward trend. The red lines show the last year of George W. Bush in the White House and the blue lines show Barack Obama in the White House.

Stephen has been paying close attention to the plight of the rich. As he put it, "It's not easy having green." In the recent stock market recovery, the top one percent of earners only got 93% of the gains. The wealthy are paying the lowest tax rate since the 1950s. The Dow last week closed at its highest in five years. Granted those things sound good, but the rich still have "trickle down tears." You see, they might end up having to pay a little bit more for their private jet. Can't we convince the middle class and the poor to help out? One thing Stephen was able to do for them was to create a Certificate of Richness.

Official Stephen Colbert Certificate of Richness
The Holder of This Document Has Amassed Inconceivable Wealth That He Truly Deserves, and More Importantly, Someone Likes Him.

It is signed by Stephen Colbert, has a nice blue border, has a gold seal on it and is available for $1 million.

Another thing Stephen has done is create a new political party, the
Protecting Industry Titans & Yachtsmen party. Hopefully this will help. Stephen does what he can and America is thankful for that.

Election Day is coming up soon - November 6. Stephen talked about Arkansas where the Koch Brothers have pledged to spend nearly $1 million there on Republican candidates. And then he talked about Maine where Colleen Lachowicz is running for State Senate, but she plays online video games. Stephen hinted at the possibility that she may have played Risk, Monopoly and Operation in her younger years. So, judge for yourself. I mean, have you ever played a game?

The guest last night was great, in that he also is an author. Mark Kelly was on to promote his new book, "Mousetronaut." There were a few things that confused me or befuddled me last night. First of all, the title of his book. "Mousetronaut." That's it. Today's books have long titles. Shouldn't it have a long title too, something like, "Mousetronaut - The Short Tale of a Brave Mouse and His Long Tail." Or maybe, "Mousetronaut - How One Rodent Singlepawedly Saved a Mission and Restored NASA To The Glory of the Moon Walking Days Not the Moonwalk Like Michael Jackson But The Moonwalk Like Neil Armstrong." Eh, maybe "Mousetronaut" will work fine.

The other think that confused me was my TV listing for last night's show. It said the guest was Author Mark Kelly. Okay, maybe that is to show that he has a lot in common with Stephen Colbert. Couldn't the listing also have mentioned that Mark Kelly was an astronaut? The only thing I can figure out is that it was easy for him to bring the tools of his trade as an author to The Colbert Report - a book. For him to bring the tools of his trade as an astronaut might have been more expensive, more labor intensive and it would have taken up too much room in the studio. What could he do, bring a shuttle?

Luckily, Stephen was able to get that whole outer space connection into the discussion when he casually mentioned the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. For that we say thank you, Stephen.

Don't Eat It, Stephen

I admit that I did not watch the first Presidential Debate. I figured Stephen would fill in the important details, and he did. He had a great segment where he showed us how the debate looked. That only took about 30 seconds to watch, saving me a quite a bit of time. And he analyzed some of his fellow media analysts as they analyzed the debates. So it was helpful to get that analysis from people who make their career by digging into the details of what makes a good president. For example, Brit Hume shared that Mitt Romney was wearing a half smile, not a smirk during the debate. Stephen modeled both for us. That helps me decide who to vote for.

One of the things I learned was that Romney, who has been promising tax cuts for the rich, was scheduled to come across as warm and fuzzy in the debates according to his campaign. This is great, especially after that secret video came out where Romney said he doesn't care about 47% of Americans. If he can look into the camera, (probably a really big camera , making it easy for Romney to know there is a camera) and say, "I care," then people will believe that and forget the whole 47% fiasco.

Many times we hear pundits talking about our politicians. It's not often that we get to see a visual representation of what these candidates are like. Stephen was able to do that. He had an Etch-A-Sketch with the words "Tax Cuts" etched onto the screen. (By the way, if you don't know what an Etch-A-Sketch is, click here and then be sure to keep hitting refresh.) So, Stephen took that Etch-A-Sketch, put it in a paint can, took it over to his studio paint shaker and shook that can of paint. I have to stop here and wonder if Stephen always has a paint shaker in his studio, or did he bring it from home, or did he borrow it from Home Depot? Just wondering. Anyway, he shook up that paint can really good, took it over to his desk, got out his tool, (yes we got to see Stephen's tool), and opened it up. Just as expected, it contained something warm and fuzzy. From tax cuts to warm and fuzzy in just one step. Or as Stephen said, "Prest-o Change-o."

With the November elections coming up in November (coincidence???), Stephen reminded us that he is very concerned about stomping out voter fraud. I wonder if he is aware of the voter fraud problems in Florida. He should be! He said that if even one fraudster shows up at the polls in November, that would tarnish the integrity of an election that the Koch Brothers paid good money for. Stephen did have two voter fraud alerts.

1. Six days before the election, millions of Americans will disguise themselves. That's why we need Photo ID. (Although personally I wonder about that because it's not that hard to get a fake ID and if these people disguise themselves, then wouldn't they need a photo taken while they are in disguise?)

2. A judge in Pennsylvania ruled against the Voter ID law being used for this election. But there is a silver lining, sort of. "Election officials...can ask for photo identification..." but they "...cannot prevent people from voting if they don't have it..."

I guess if you live in Pennsylvania and you don't have an ID, just go vote like you would any other year. Read about voting here, here, and here. And no matter which state you live in, be informed before you go to the polls. Your country is counting on you.

But, on with the show. Stephen's guest was Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School. He is working on mapping human genomes and Stephen sincerely hopes he isn't using an iPhone 5 to do the mapping. First question - what is the personal genome project? It's sharing genes, traits and environmental data information with the whole world. Stephen suggested an alternate process. The two of them discussed all sorts of sciencey stuff - splicing genes, making replacement petroleum, bringing back the woolly mammoth. Finally, Stephen asked the big question. "How do you think your work will eventually destroy all mankind? Killer virus... mutant killer squid man?"

We did not actually get a definitive answer to that question from Dr. George Church. So, they went on to the next topic, a new book. As usual, it has a very long title. I guess all the short titles have been used up. So, the book is, "Regenesis - How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves."

Stephen had great questions about the book. "Do we need reinventing? Are you playing God, sir, 'cause you certainly have the beard for it?" And remember how Stephen has been plugging his book on his show when other people plug their book? Well, this guy brought 20 million copies of his book to the interview! He reached into his pocket, took out a small vial and presented Stephen with a piece of paper about the size of a Fortune Cookie fortune. On the paper was a dot. Through the magic of science, that dot had 20 million copies of the book on it.

He told Stephen not to eat it. Stephen did not eat it, but he most certainly was tempted. I can just imagine if the show had been any longer, the audience would have started chanting, "Eat the books. Eat the books. Eat the books."

Waiting to Exhale

Ooh, I just saw Cain's new ad on TV. On a news show of course. I sometimes think that's half the exposure that political ads get. Probably makes the candidates happy when that happens.

Anyway, it's of a guy smoking and then a close-up of Cain smiling. The smoker is Mark Block. He is one of Herman Cain's top people in the presidential campaign and previously worked for Americans for Prosperity (think Koch Brothers). He also had a bit of trouble in Wisconsin some years back with allegations of election law violations. But all that is smoke under the bridge now.

What caught my attention in the ad of Mark Block smoking is the lack of any smoke. If you see the ad, watch closely. He doesn't exhale. That's right. Smoking but no smoke. (Well, just a tiny bit, but mostly he tries to keep it in until ad is done.) I have noticed that same thing years ago in magazine ads for cigarettes. They show people holding lit cigarettes, but usually no smoke.

So now I wonder if Stephen will talk about this tonight. Typically I never seem to predict what he will talk about so mostly I just watch The Colbert Report and hope that once in a while I will talk about a story before he gets to it.

Tea Party

I remember when I was young, very young, the girls in the neighborhood would get together about this time of year when it was starting to get cooler, and have a "tea party" that included many of our dolls and teddy bears. Times have changed and so has the typical tea party that you hear people talking about.

While I was reading about David Vetter in the link in yesterday's post, this was on the same page and so I also clicked on this article about the Tea Party (Capital "T", Capital "P".)

As they say, put that in your cup of tea and drink it. (I don't know why they say that, I personally think a little bit of sugar or honey would be better.)

How to "Win" an Election

First, choose your side.
Second, tell the other side to vote when it is too late.
Third, tell the other side the wrong place to send absentee ballots.
Fourth, claim it was all an honest mistake.

Stephen even made up a catchy poem to help the people in Wisconsin remember the wrong information that is being sent to voters in Democratic districts:

~ ~ ~ On August 11 make your selection
~ ~ ~ That's just two days after the actual election.

For the record, people in Wisconsin should vote on August 9, not on August 11.

I could write it all down, but here's the information everyone needs to know at Huffington Post.

Really, go read it at Huffington Post. You can find out information about such things as Voter Fraud, Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers, and typos.

Then watch the show at Colbert Nation if you did not see it tonight. He tells all about the snafu in Wisconsin. Plus you can see him model a certain article of clothing. You wouldn't want to miss that would you?

The Stupidest Thing Anyone Ever Did

Stephen Colbert got control of MLB twitter feed for 24 hours starting at midnight on August 5. Bad idea MLB. You should have known better. If you are interested, it's
twitter@mlb

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What were they thinking?

Tonight's guest was Anthony Bourdain. He likes to cook and he likes to eat, but not just anything. It needs to be good food.