Goodnight Moon

The new Pope is so Popish that he goes out at night and helps people. Stephen (and I presume others) are calling him BatPope. For those of you who do not remember what the old TV Batman show was like, you can watch Hi Diddle Riddle here. While I don't see the resemblance between Batman and BatPope, it's true that both men help people.

Typically, I get hungry when watching the The Colbert Report. Maybe that's because he often has the Thought for Food segment. Last night was about Trans Fat and interestingly enough, it's not actually food, it's really just an ingredient. It's all in the media because the FDA wants to ban it in food. And with media exposure comes opinions and controversy. This prompted Stephen to stand up for another conservative newsman, Tucker Carlson who said it's probably delicious. Said Stephen in his defense, "Now that might sound like an idiotic thing to say, but let me be the only person standing up for Tucker Carlson. If he's so stupid, why is he on Fox News?"

Even Rand Paul has weighed in on Trans Fat by saying, "They're coming after your Donuts."

Actually, they can just go back to making donuts the old fashioned way, you know, like grandma did.

Also in the Thought for Food Segment, we got to see a photo of a McD's frozen rib. oohh.

Stephen demonstrated the Double Robotics Double, basically an iPad on a Segway. But I've seen it before on South Park, the episode about Blockbuster on Halloween, so I wasn't impressed. Plus, it made me quite sad when Jay the Intern was fired.

Stephen's guest last night was Dr. Ed Stone, creator of the Space Age. The two men talked about Voyager, the Interstellar Mission. We have great photos of the larger planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and tons of information, thanks to Voyager. We also got to see, at the end of the show, Stephen Tiberius Colbert (channeling Sandra Bullock) present a NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal to Ed Stone.

Stephen signed off last night with a simple, "Goodnight, Moon."

Naked 50 Year-Old Man

Stephen did report that the Royal Baby has been born. The baby has no name yet, so I'll just call him Baby Stephen. There will be team coverage on this story Tuesday night probably dependent on whether or not Stephen can actually find a team to cover the story.

In other news, friend of the show Helen Thomas died. She was a ground-breaking journalist and likely influenced many other journalists, including ours truly, Stephen Colbert. Geraldo Rivera had to get in on the news cycle and I found this photo and also this one. (Now I understand what I saw on the Daily Show with that photo of Jon Stewart.)

Stephen talked about the evils of minimum wage and even mentioned Charles Koch when talking about the subject of paying workers. McDonald's is concerned about their workers and has a great idea. The workers, their employees, need to develop a budget and thus there won't need to be all this talk about minimum wage, in that there won't be a need to raise the minimum wage. I found a little bit about the budget here at Consumerist and they pointed out, as Stephen did, that there was no money to spend on heat. One other thing, you need to work 2 jobs in order to make the budget work.

There were a few things I wondered about when looking at the budget journal. If I ride my bike to McDonald's, is there a bike rack for me to lock it to? And for all the other employees' bikes? How much money do I need to save for my goal of going to college? And how old will I be when I have saved enough? One of the tips for being good with my money is to shop with a list so that I can save money. If I shop with two lists, will I save twice as much money? In the Frequently Asked Questions section, are those really the kind of questions that are frequently asked? I would have asked "What am I going to do if I break my leg at work? How much money should I plan on spending on a computer and Internet service so that I can look at the website? If I'm working two jobs, when am I going to find time to budget?"

Neil deGrasse Tyson was not on the show, but Stephen mocked his mocking of intelligent life on Earth. Some people wonder why we haven't been contacted by aliens yet. Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests that perhaps we have been observed and the aliens decided there was no intelligent life on Earth. Well that really got Stephen going and the logical conclusion to all of this ended up being a special relationship that Stephen has with a piece of Linguine.

The guest last night was Kjerstin Gruys and she looked marvelous. I had to say that because it's possible she didn't check herself in a mirror before she came on the show. She has a book out now. "Mirror Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year." It took her a year to write that book, obviously. I mean it says "Year" right there in the title. But it probably would have taken less time if the title had been shorter. Anyway... she talked with Stephen about mirrors and self-image and planning a wedding. Stephen added constructive advice.

It got me to thinking. What would it be like to go a year without looking in a mirror. You ask your friend, "Do I have any broccoli in my teeth?" Your friend smiles to himself, tells you No, and then wishes you good luck on your job interview. And of course you do have broccoli in your teeth and so you don't get the job and you have to work at McDonald's and now you have to revise your budget.

Note: This is the updated version of my post. So, those of you who read it shortly after midnight, now there is more to read. Of course, if you thought you had read it all and didn't come back later and read this, you aren't going to know I updated it. Never mind.