Come back, George, we hardly knew ya!

I often wondered what they talked about during the commercials, so to speak. Well, now we know.

By the time Gene Siskel died much too early, they really had bonded and loved each other, though maybe they didn’t say it, or recognize it until Gene was sick and the writing was on the wall. Roger Ebert has memorialized his partner and friend so beautifully since then, in a way we should all hope to be honored when we are gone.

Now Roger himself is ill, has lost his voice, but still writes and his real Voice rings pretty clear on issues beyond celluloid and art. He has stood strong to rant against the violations of our constitution, and the immorality of war. You can’t keep a spirit like that down.

That pair has brought me a lot of insight, pleasure and laughter over the years. These outtakes — biting, argumentative, silly, make me love those guys all the more.

You know how, in mid-February, everyone is going, “Jeez, another day off??? How’s a person supposed to get any work done around here?”

And everyone (okay, just me probably) is always going, “I need a holiday in August. Why can’t someone born in August do something so great that we shouldn’t have to work in honor of them?”

Barack Obama was born on August 4. I’m just sayin’.

The song was in Benny and Joon, the Johnnie Depp film. Check out mashups with Shrek, Homer Simpson, Family Guy, and South Park. Funny stuff.

It was even on Comic Relief, with Craig and Charlie chiming in at the end.

I expect to see lots more incoming traffic now, because (it can be revealed, now that my evil plot has been realized) those boys are really radical pinko activists I smuggled in to turn Oklahoma blue.

Change is coming! The future is waiting for us. Viva la revolution!

She actually thought the president of France would call her to shoot the breeze and plan a hunting trip.

If she and her staff can’t vet a damn phone call, or know when they’re being played for a fool (which wasn’t hard to catch) how do you think they are going to keep this country safe from, like, actual bad guys who don’t throw out a hint every other second?

C’est la vie, indeed. Here’s political historian Lawrence O’Donnell on Rachel Maddow Show last night explaining how VP candidates have no future in national politics. Yay! I feel much better. Pertinent part starts about 3:30 in.

O’Donnell was just on MSNBC talking about this phone call and he said that Palin’s staff is the worst in modern political history. According to him, if Palin or anyone around her had “gotten out of town more” they would know what a fake French accent that was. Touché!

h/t Americablog

Are You A Republican?

..wherein you will learn such important points as “[...]we’re going to take you into the world of blogs by delivering this story — call it Blogs 101 for businesses — in the style of a blog. We’re even sprinkling it with links. These are underlined words that, when clicked, carry readers of this story’s online version to another Web page. [...]

and so on. I will give the writer credit for at least making one critical point:

But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.

Couldn’t be happier about that, myself.