Edward Snowden wants to go to Brazil, not surprising since it is December and the Southern Hemisphere is the place to be this time of year. No one wants to go to China right now because the smog is so bad, at least in Shanghai. But that can be a good thing.
There is a new coloring book out for Rafael Edward Cruz, or "Ted" Cruz as you probably know him. It's very interesting because, while you might think it's for kids, it's actually For All Ages.
Tuesday's guest was Garry Trudeau talking about Alpha House. There were many interesting portions of the interview, but two things stood out for me. One was that Stephen forced Garry Trudeau to say "Merry Christmas." The second was that we got to see a clip of Alpha House and Stephen Colbert was in the clip!
Joining Stephen for the Christmas Carol portion was Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper.
Showing posts with label Ted Cruz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ted Cruz. Show all posts
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Splendiferous Loquaciousness
In a related story, a hungry woman was arrested in Bellefontaine, Ohio for taking $2.87 out of a pretty fountain in order to buy some food. She's unemployed. Someone should tell this woman to run for Congress.
But, to get back to the show, Ted Cruz is excited because, "We saw the House of Representatives take a courageous stand, listening to the American people that everyone in official Washington just weeks earlier said would never happen. That was a remarkable victory."
In a segment that might have been labeled "Let's Blame Someone" but wasn't, Stephen talked about Dr. Keith Ablow, Psychiatrist over at Fox, who gave a "brilliant long distance diagnosis" of President Obama. Stephen was amazed at Ablow's "yankability." Stephen even staked his professional reputation and said that Dr. Ablow is able to retain that which he has grasped and even now is allowing his creativity to blossom and move his thought processes to tomorrow's show. (I'm paraphrasing somewhat.)
Education is important of course. Why else would we watch the The Colbert Report if we didn't want to learn stuff? Unfortunately, U.S. students aren't doing so well on the global level. In fact, "...students in Latvia, Chile and Brazil are making gains in academics three times faster than American students..." Stephen pointed out that that is almost twice as much and I think we have discovered the problem.
Enter the Common Core Standards. Sounds good, but here's a related problem. Robots are grading test papers. They can grade 6,000 essays in 20 seconds. One way they do this is by simply counting. How many letters in a word? How many words in a sentence? How many sentences in a paragraph? Go read about Mr. Bleep Blorp's method and success at grading papers. Then, next time you take a test, just put in big words, long sentences and lengthy paragraphs. Or should I say enormous words, gargantuan sentences and humongous paragraphs? I think we can all agree that this will end all the controversy about kids taking too many standardized tests and teachers teaching to the test. As long as kids use big words when writing essays, content will not be important.
You know, it reminds me of one of my college professors. He could grade research papers in five seconds! He would stand at the top of stairs in the old library and throw all the papers down the staircase. The ones at the bottom got an A and the ones at the top got an F. It worked for him.
Stephen had a short literature segment about dinosaurs. It was interesting in that I learned something I had not known before about our scaly friends.
The guests on Monday night were The Reflektors - Win and Will Butler. They are from Montreal. That's in Canada which was a nice tie-in because Senator Ted Cruz was born in Canada, eh? They discussed with Stephen some other Canadian bands, namely Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Arcade Fire. Win, Will and Stephen all agreed that BTO is the better band. Arcade Fire is "kind of pretentious." The interview turned into a travel promotion for Haiti. But of course they sang a song and of course there is a bonus song over at Colbert Nation. But sadly, we got to see what the staff at Colbert Studio does when Stephen is away. Arts and Crafts, Mischief Making and general poking fun at Stephen's big head. At times I was even confused at to who was actually playing instruments and who was singing. I think it just points out how important it is for anyone to pay attention to details in the fascinating world of music and music makers.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Can I Come Back and Watch?
Have you ever wondered why the First Amendment is first? Me neither, but Stephen explained why it is the way it is. Mainly so that he can discuss the Second Amendment on his show. Well, that makes perfect sense. He went on to talk about other free speech issues, but I'm not at liberty to talk about them.
It's been a while since we last saw Sports Report so it was nice to see it last night.I'm glad that I don't have to analyze all the various sports on TV and luckily Stephen doesn't have to either for his Sports Report. He can just go to Fox and see what they have to say. And they had to say that football is suffering. That's because football is trying to cut back on that whole targeting other people's heads. Stephen pointed out that we are all born with bone helmets around our think meat, so what's the problem? The problem is the Wussification of America, that's what, according to the tackling dummy. America is getting wussified. This war on football shouldn't be happening. Stephen pointed out that it is possible to come back from an injury similar to what you might get in football and still have a great career. "Just look at The Five." Right you are Stephen.
Canadian-born Dr. Seuss fan, Ted Cruz, did what can only be described as a gab fest, or an all-nighter, or a quasi-filibuster, well, I guess it can be described a lot of ways, but the point is, he spent more than 21 hours on the Senate floor reading what I assume is the novel he finally finished, "Green Eggs and Ham," by Dr. Seuss. Perhaps it is a subtle way for him to show his support of alternative foods for hungry people. Hard to know. Anyway, Stephen listened to everything Canadian-born Ted Cruz said and came up with a fictional yard sign. It's fictional because it probably doesn't exist. I also don't think a Canadian can be president, but I'm no expert. Anyway, the sign says, "Cruz for President - If You're Not Paying Attention." Has a nice ring to it.
Stephen's guest was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, although I may have spelled Jordan's name wrong. Jordan is what you might call a very successful guy. His current movie is "Don Jon." I haven't seen it, but I think it's one of those boy meets girl type of movies. Stephen and Jordan traded lots of witty insights into the meaning of life, such as, okay, I'm not really going to put those witty comments here. You have to watch it in reruns or on Colbert Nation or on your own TV if you have TiVo or something like that. But they are witty. They also discussed the craft of being an actor. Stephen asked Jordan if it was hard to get into character for the movie. Also, "Are you in character now?"
I enjoy Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a person and a singer and a actor and a producer, but what I really hope you noticed tonight was his socks. I've got to think Stephen liked them too.They are true American socks.
It's been a while since we last saw Sports Report so it was nice to see it last night.I'm glad that I don't have to analyze all the various sports on TV and luckily Stephen doesn't have to either for his Sports Report. He can just go to Fox and see what they have to say. And they had to say that football is suffering. That's because football is trying to cut back on that whole targeting other people's heads. Stephen pointed out that we are all born with bone helmets around our think meat, so what's the problem? The problem is the Wussification of America, that's what, according to the tackling dummy. America is getting wussified. This war on football shouldn't be happening. Stephen pointed out that it is possible to come back from an injury similar to what you might get in football and still have a great career. "Just look at The Five." Right you are Stephen.
Canadian-born Dr. Seuss fan, Ted Cruz, did what can only be described as a gab fest, or an all-nighter, or a quasi-filibuster, well, I guess it can be described a lot of ways, but the point is, he spent more than 21 hours on the Senate floor reading what I assume is the novel he finally finished, "Green Eggs and Ham," by Dr. Seuss. Perhaps it is a subtle way for him to show his support of alternative foods for hungry people. Hard to know. Anyway, Stephen listened to everything Canadian-born Ted Cruz said and came up with a fictional yard sign. It's fictional because it probably doesn't exist. I also don't think a Canadian can be president, but I'm no expert. Anyway, the sign says, "Cruz for President - If You're Not Paying Attention." Has a nice ring to it.
Stephen's guest was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, although I may have spelled Jordan's name wrong. Jordan is what you might call a very successful guy. His current movie is "Don Jon." I haven't seen it, but I think it's one of those boy meets girl type of movies. Stephen and Jordan traded lots of witty insights into the meaning of life, such as, okay, I'm not really going to put those witty comments here. You have to watch it in reruns or on Colbert Nation or on your own TV if you have TiVo or something like that. But they are witty. They also discussed the craft of being an actor. Stephen asked Jordan if it was hard to get into character for the movie. Also, "Are you in character now?"
I enjoy Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a person and a singer and a actor and a producer, but what I really hope you noticed tonight was his socks. I've got to think Stephen liked them too.They are true American socks.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme
First post of August when we start realizing that summer is coming to an end. Yikes! Of course, we could have nice weather until November. One can hope.
Anyway, Bradley Manning, the least athletic of the Manning brothers, has been in the news lately. We learn that Hillary Clinton could possibly maybe perhaps be thinking of running for President in 2016. I think that would be neat. Enough of the sons of Presidents also becoming President. It's time for a spouse of a former President to also be elected to that high office. If not Hillary, then maybe Barbara?
Remember how I talked about the humility contest going on between Ted Cruz and Stephen Colbert? Now there seems to be, I'm not quite sure, but perhaps a Bacon Eating Contest going on between Chris Christie and Rand Paul. Oh, wait, I have it wrong. It's about who gets more bacon and by bacon I mean money from Washington, from the Feds, in other words our tax money. Funny story. For every dollar that Chris Christie's state (New Jersey) sends to Washington, only 61 cents comes back to New Jersey. Rand Paul has it way better. Kentucky sends one thin dollar to Washington and whoa! gets back a whopping $1.51. Seems like Rand Paul is getting bacon and also pork.
Board Games are apparently now considered Bored Games and so they are being jazzed up, spiffed up, and toned down so that kids and families will play them. I think this is a terrible trend. Monopoly is going to do away with "Go to Jail!" Or not as the case may be. Stephen went through a whole lot of games and how they are being ruined (my word, not his) by this constant updating and changing of stuff that works just fine so why do you have to go and change it anyway for crying out loud! Are we going to see a Checkers board with only 36 squares? I suppose they will do away with the Queen in Chess. (GOP War on Women????) Will Hopscotch become Jogscotch?
Some say this has to do with the shortened attention span of kids today. Well then, teach them how to play a board game that lasts for more than ten minutes. You are not born with an attention span, you have to develop it. If you only have thirty minutes, then play the game, leave it on the table in the dining room or basement until tomorrow. Or, put it away, keeping track of who had Boardwalk and who had Marvin Gardens, and put your money in a pile. Finish the Monopoly game later. It can be done.
I just had to join in with Stephen and talk about this horrible assault on traditional board game values. I'm glad I was able to clear the air on that subject.
The guest last night was Emily Matchar. She helped Stephen understand the new and yet traditional roles for women. What was old is new again. Her book is "Homeward Bound - Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity." Personally, I had hoped she would teach Stephen how to can tomatoes or at least how to knit a scarf. But they did talk about people, not just women, getting back to doing all sorts of tasks for themselves. I wonder if there is a pickle recipe in the book. That would be delicious.
Anyway, Bradley Manning, the least athletic of the Manning brothers, has been in the news lately. We learn that Hillary Clinton could possibly maybe perhaps be thinking of running for President in 2016. I think that would be neat. Enough of the sons of Presidents also becoming President. It's time for a spouse of a former President to also be elected to that high office. If not Hillary, then maybe Barbara?
Remember how I talked about the humility contest going on between Ted Cruz and Stephen Colbert? Now there seems to be, I'm not quite sure, but perhaps a Bacon Eating Contest going on between Chris Christie and Rand Paul. Oh, wait, I have it wrong. It's about who gets more bacon and by bacon I mean money from Washington, from the Feds, in other words our tax money. Funny story. For every dollar that Chris Christie's state (New Jersey) sends to Washington, only 61 cents comes back to New Jersey. Rand Paul has it way better. Kentucky sends one thin dollar to Washington and whoa! gets back a whopping $1.51. Seems like Rand Paul is getting bacon and also pork.
Board Games are apparently now considered Bored Games and so they are being jazzed up, spiffed up, and toned down so that kids and families will play them. I think this is a terrible trend. Monopoly is going to do away with "Go to Jail!" Or not as the case may be. Stephen went through a whole lot of games and how they are being ruined (my word, not his) by this constant updating and changing of stuff that works just fine so why do you have to go and change it anyway for crying out loud! Are we going to see a Checkers board with only 36 squares? I suppose they will do away with the Queen in Chess. (GOP War on Women????) Will Hopscotch become Jogscotch?
Some say this has to do with the shortened attention span of kids today. Well then, teach them how to play a board game that lasts for more than ten minutes. You are not born with an attention span, you have to develop it. If you only have thirty minutes, then play the game, leave it on the table in the dining room or basement until tomorrow. Or, put it away, keeping track of who had Boardwalk and who had Marvin Gardens, and put your money in a pile. Finish the Monopoly game later. It can be done.
I just had to join in with Stephen and talk about this horrible assault on traditional board game values. I'm glad I was able to clear the air on that subject.
The guest last night was Emily Matchar. She helped Stephen understand the new and yet traditional roles for women. What was old is new again. Her book is "Homeward Bound - Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity." Personally, I had hoped she would teach Stephen how to can tomatoes or at least how to knit a scarf. But they did talk about people, not just women, getting back to doing all sorts of tasks for themselves. I wonder if there is a pickle recipe in the book. That would be delicious.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Polar Bears Going Door to Door
If you are looking to head to the beach this weekend, you could head North. The North Pole is now sitting in the North Pole Lake. That's right, for the past 10 summers, the North Pole has turned from ice to water. This should make you think about Climate Change with a whole new perspective.
Congress. Still working just as hard as you think they are. That is not much of a compliment, in case you are wondering. Stephen mentioned HR 2904, a House bill that the Republicans are hoping Obama will sign and sign quickly. It's that one that says, "This is not another repeal of Obamacare, we swear, but don't look inside, just sign it! sign it!"
Senator Mitch McConnell was given a shout-out on the show. Although he has the nickname of Senator Gridlock, in part because of his numerous filibusters, he is taking heat from Tea Party groups who complained about his progressive liberal voting record.
This points up a problem in Washington. Some members of Congress might try to get stuff done, but then voters hold them accountable for what they have done. The solution is to keep it all secret until the year 2064 when Honey Boo Boo is president. So, Congress will do the People's Business, but it's just none of the People's Business to know about it.
Another Senator was mentioned, that Canadian favorite son, Ted Cruz. He and Stephen Colbert are in some sort of (private???) contest to see who is the most humble. Every day Ted Cruz (apparently) reminds himself of how humble he is. I just wish there was some way the two men could meet and have an official humility contest. Stephen Colbert would be way better than Ted Cruz. His humility is one of the traits he is proudest of.
Stephen's guest was Atul Gawande, a surgeon AND journalist, among other things. Go just read that first paragraph about him here at Wikipedia and you'll probably agree that he's a busy man. And yet he had time to be on the The Colbert Report. He also is an associate professor over at Harvard. I think that might be why he was one of those guests who is surprised when Stephen interrupts him. (Sorry Stephen, but it's true. Sometimes you don't let your guests finish saying what they were talking about.) Perhaps as a surgeon and a professor, Atul Gawande is used to people listening to everything he says and not asking questions until he asks if there are any questions from anyone. This is pure speculation on my part.
Anyway, he wrote an article for The New Yorker about "Slow Ideas." You should read it. If you think it is too long, then just read one page per day and in a week you will be done reading it. I will mention that Stephen did joke a bit with him about writing about Slow Ideas and then publishing it in a magazine.... Whatever.
Okay, let me check:
__ Title for this post - done
__ North Pole - done
__ Congress - done
__ Mitch McConnell - done
__ Honey Boo Boo - done
__ Ted Cruz - done
__ Atul Gawande - done
Great. I remembered to write about everything on my checklist. (And only one day late.) Well done. Pat myself on the back.
Congress. Still working just as hard as you think they are. That is not much of a compliment, in case you are wondering. Stephen mentioned HR 2904, a House bill that the Republicans are hoping Obama will sign and sign quickly. It's that one that says, "This is not another repeal of Obamacare, we swear, but don't look inside, just sign it! sign it!"
Senator Mitch McConnell was given a shout-out on the show. Although he has the nickname of Senator Gridlock, in part because of his numerous filibusters, he is taking heat from Tea Party groups who complained about his progressive liberal voting record.
This points up a problem in Washington. Some members of Congress might try to get stuff done, but then voters hold them accountable for what they have done. The solution is to keep it all secret until the year 2064 when Honey Boo Boo is president. So, Congress will do the People's Business, but it's just none of the People's Business to know about it.
Another Senator was mentioned, that Canadian favorite son, Ted Cruz. He and Stephen Colbert are in some sort of (private???) contest to see who is the most humble. Every day Ted Cruz (apparently) reminds himself of how humble he is. I just wish there was some way the two men could meet and have an official humility contest. Stephen Colbert would be way better than Ted Cruz. His humility is one of the traits he is proudest of.
Stephen's guest was Atul Gawande, a surgeon AND journalist, among other things. Go just read that first paragraph about him here at Wikipedia and you'll probably agree that he's a busy man. And yet he had time to be on the The Colbert Report. He also is an associate professor over at Harvard. I think that might be why he was one of those guests who is surprised when Stephen interrupts him. (Sorry Stephen, but it's true. Sometimes you don't let your guests finish saying what they were talking about.) Perhaps as a surgeon and a professor, Atul Gawande is used to people listening to everything he says and not asking questions until he asks if there are any questions from anyone. This is pure speculation on my part.
Anyway, he wrote an article for The New Yorker about "Slow Ideas." You should read it. If you think it is too long, then just read one page per day and in a week you will be done reading it. I will mention that Stephen did joke a bit with him about writing about Slow Ideas and then publishing it in a magazine.... Whatever.
Okay, let me check:
__ Title for this post - done
__ North Pole - done
__ Congress - done
__ Mitch McConnell - done
__ Honey Boo Boo - done
__ Ted Cruz - done
__ Atul Gawande - done
Great. I remembered to write about everything on my checklist. (And only one day late.) Well done. Pat myself on the back.
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