I'm going to reprint this Timothy Noah piece from Slate in its entirety...
Somebody forgot to tell doctors how terribly unpopular the public option is. Sixty-three percent of them support it, according to a new survey conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, even though one of its chief purposes would be to pay doctors less. When Robert Pear wrote in the Sept. 12 New York Times that the public option "appears to be dying" partly because of "all-out opposition" by "much of the health care industry," he should have said, "except actual physicians."
Somebody forgot to tell the public, too. Fifty-five percent of them support it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
What's the matter with 63% of doctors? Why do they want to destroy health care in this country?
The other day here, I said that the Washington D.C. Fire Department had issued an estimate of 60,000-70,000 people for the 9/12 rally on the National Mall. A lot of sources were reporting that and it turns out that's wrong, too. The Fire Department says they never issued any sort of estimate.
Apparently, there is no such thing as an official estimate of crowd sizes in Washington, at least from any official department. Some used to issue such estimates but the organizers of events always got mad that the reports were lower than they claimed, and some even sued or threatened to sue. The press issues estimates but reporters don't usually have a lot of experience in this area, or access to data like police or transit reports. And of course, this is America where the media is always a pack of lying, biased weasels whenever they say something you don't want to believe is true.
FreedomWorks, a group which is described as the main organizer of the rally, has halved its original claim from 1.5 million to between 600,000 and 800,000. Some of their followers may believe that, some may stick with the original 1.5 million, and it doesn't matter that even some right-wing press said "tens of thousands." These folks will never believe that Obama isn't a lying, Kenyan-born Nazi who's planning to have his secret army throw political opponents into concentration camps. They might as well believe there were 700,000 of themselves there that day.
I dunno what to expect from Jay Leno's new show, which debuts tonight. I like Jay, both in terms of what I've seen of him onstage and off, though elements of his Tonight Show left me cold. I liked his monologues and when he had on a guest he truly liked, the conversations were a lot of fun to watch. I didn't like his reliance on "correspondents" or on the many bits that were devoted to the premise that there are a lot of really, really stupid people out there.
(For the record, I don't like it when Letterman does that, either — usually in some spot involving Rupert, the clueless deli owner around the corner. To his credit, Dave seems to have cut way back on Rupert lately, but he has resurrected what may just be the most childish recurring stunt ever on a talk show, which is to spray water on unsuspecting pedestrians. When I was eight, a kid down the block used to think the funniest thing in the world was to hide near the lawn sprinkler control and when people walked by, to suddenly turn on the H2O and douse them. It's the exact same bit and it hasn't gotten any cleverer.)
Back to Jay. An awful lot of folks out there seem to be rooting for his new show to fail. Those complaining it's taking work away from writers and actors are, I think, exaggerating the impact. Leno is hiring Writers Guild writers — 22 at last report, and rumor has it that some of them are getting paid quite well. They're also being hired year-round, as opposed to being around for 22 episodes and then sent home, and there will be union actors on the show, as well. That may not yield as many jobs as five nights of CSI-type shows in the same time slots, but it's an awful lot more than most reality and game shows have created. There are hours on prime time TV that employ no WGA writers, one or two AFTRA members as hosts...and that's it. There are also hours that take filming and all the production jobs and dollars to Canada, and Jay's show isn't doing that, either.
You also have people who never liked Jay on The Tonight Show...and I suppose they're not going to like him any more at 10:00. Since he's promising lot of "correspondents" and Jay Walking, I may not, either. But let's give the guy a chance. It is at least an attempt to put comedy on in prime time and how often have we gotten that, lately?
By the way: There's a live streaming webcam on Jay's set. You can tune in at any time and see what's happening there. Right now, a lot of folks seem to be walking around aimlessly. I hope that won't be a regular segment on the program.
Charles C. Krulak was commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994. They think the torture policies of Dick Cheney (a) didn't yield any useful info, (b) broke the law, (c) helped the enemy's recruitment efforts and (d) lowered our moral standing in the world. But hey, it is possible that they could have gotten information that Jack Bauer could have used to stop a nuclear bomb from going off in Manhattan.
So a little while ago, I'm surfing around the web and I glimpse an ad for Fujitsu Scanners. It shows a woman holding a knife and fork and sporting a big, crazed expression...
And then I click over to the website for the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas and there's a promotion there for an "all-day-long dining" option at their buffet. It contains this picture...
My, this lady gets around. And yes, I know both photos probably just came from a stock photo service. It was just odd to see them on two unrelated websites in a row. And hey, who's to say she isn't using her Fujitsu Scanner at the Excalibur Buffet?
Last night, I watched one of my favorite TV shows each year — the annual Chabad "To Life" Telethon. It's always fun, especially since they dispensed with Dennis Prager as host. Anyway, this year a featured guest was Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and he was quite hilarious, especially since he (i.e., Robert Smigel, his manipulator) seems to have convinced the rabbis to just go along with him, however bizarre it might be. Sorry you probably missed it but I'm told that a segment from Triumph's POV, as shot by his own camera crew, will be on The Tonight Show in the next few nights. We will watch and if possible, we will embed.
This is going to make some of you very happy. In the past, I've linked to short clips of the great clown George Carl performing truncated versions of his wonderful act. This video, which runs around eighteen minutes, appears to be his complete routine as he was performing it at the time this was shot, which I'm guessing is around 1992 or so. It's from a stage show done at an Australian casino.
George passed away in 2000. He did versions of this act for over fifty years, honing every second of it to perfection. I feel very fortunate that I got to see him do it live, which made it at least three times funnier. He was in a show in Vegas serving as a respite between dance routines by beautiful shirtless ladies. Do you know how hard it is to steal a show from beautiful shirtless ladies? George Carl did it, performing a set that went pretty much like this, minus the silly intro...
September 15, 2009
