First off: This is no joke, people. “The Brave Little Toaster” is a really funny movie (the cast includes Jon Lovitz and the late Phil Hartmann) that my daughter and I watched over and over. Here’s the story from IMDb: “When a young boy and his family go on holiday, their household appliances, led by the toaster, think they’ve been abandoned. They decide, rather than be left alone in the house for who knows how long, to try to find him. So begins a dangerous and amusing venture through the city and countryside.”
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Toaster: You know, we could use someone who’s really… strong!
Lampy: And loud!
Blanky: And grumpy!
The Radio: And oblivious to reality!
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Speaking of oblivious to reality, did you know that Donald Rumsfeld is a poet?
Slate has published a small collection:
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
–Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
Glass Box
You know, it’s the old glass box at the–
At the gas station,
Where you’re using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can’t find it.
It’s–
And it’s all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But–
Some of you are probably too young to remember those–
Those glass boxes,
But–
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.
–Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing
On her page of “Favorite Things,” BlondeGeoPrincess lists “Donald Rumsfeld…always refreshing,” along with GOD, my flute, Barbie dolls, the “Lethal Weapon” series, peacock feathers, Nina Gordon songs, the Doll Palace, and of course Dan Abrams.
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The Radio: Come over here and say that, crome dome.
Kirby: WHAT?
The Radio: Oh sorry about that. I meant to say, “Vacuous vacuum.”
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“Morning Sedition” is the best show on Air America Radio, but it airs 3AM-6AM PST so I listen to the archives.
It’s Easter weekend, so today’s snarky “Liberal Agenda” includes:
- Prepare for Easter. Make sure your children’s Easter eggs are free range.
- Hemp Easter Bonnet, tofu ham.
- Eliminate Easter egg hunt because it discriminates against kids who are “directionally-challenged”.
- Resist the urge to refer to Easter as “the Christian co-opted pagan spring fertility festival.” That’s insensitive.
- Today’s phrase, just drop it into conversation: “It’s Easter, hey that’s great. I guess you’re going to honor Jesus by doing something to help the POOR and not just sit around in new clothes eating chocolate all day. Right? Right? Wake up, sheeple. The Bunny’s stealing your soul!!”
The substitute host for vacationing comic genius Marc Maron is cartoonist Ted Rall, so the conversation is fast, bright, funny, and highly informed.
The featured guest, Rev. Barry Lynn, talks at length about the Terri Schiavo broohaha, and brings up a rightwing radio host, Glenn Beck, who’s raising money — almost $2 million to date — to pay Michael Schiavo to get a divorce. Beck, says Rev. Lynn, got a caller who also offered to give Michael Schiavo a lifetime supply of his own low-fat cheesecake.
I’ve never heard of Glenn Beck so I visit his site, and note he’s sponsored by the Premier radio network. In billboard-size letters on the home page, there’s “The Michael Schiavo Starve My Wife To Death Countdown Clock.”
Then there’s an ad for a t-shirt, a keychain or a mug.
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Blanky: Do we have to stop here?
Toaster: Only for a while.
The Radio: Just long enough to lose our minds! We’ll be cannibals within a few days, I’ve seen it happen!
Kirby: And you’ll be the first to go, dial-face.
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And I promised you more farting fish-type experiments from the real world of science.
- “An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces.”
- “Navigation-Related Structural Change In the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers,”
- Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University conducted a chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons.
- “”The Relationship Among Height, Penile Length, and Foot Size.”
- “Chewing gum flavor
affects measures of global complexity of multichannel EEG” - Carl J. Charnetski and Francis X. Brennan, Jr. of Wilkes
University, and James F. Harrison of Muzak Ltd. in Seattle,
Washington, discovered that listening to elevator Muzak
stimulates immunoblobulin A (IgA) production, and thus may help
prevent the common cold.
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Air Conditioner: The whole bunch of you gotta have a combined wattage of maybe five, maybe less. It’s scrap metal time.
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My excuse is that I have a bad cold and ache all over. And I’m stickin’ to that.
I stick to liquid echanacea, chamomile tea, Bailey’s in my fresh ground coffee, and chicken broth.
outside of that, lots of tissue’s . ; )
do not communicate in person with people, I’m waaaayyy toooooo grouchy..
(a little shot of home-brew, does’nt cure the cold, but you don’t give a shit) ; )
Bring on the Muzak! (TM)
I’ve been trying to figure it out. Just downloaded a Morning Sedition and listening to it now. Although it’s the Wednesday show ? ? ?
Actually, I’ve always kind of liked that comment about “unknown unknowns,” although Rumsfeld is, of course, Pure Evil.
And LOVE Brave Little Toaster. As did my daughter when it first came out and on many re-viewings. I may even own it.
Fun diary (well, except for the t-shirt). Thanks.
Well, you’re listening to one of the shows, so that’s cool. I do recommend the Friday show because Ted Rall is a GENIUS (I think) and he knows an endless amount about so many things … the talk on Kyrzyz (there I go again forgetting how to spell it) is particularly riveting. Ted Rall knows a bunch of fascinating facts about that part of the world. And the regular host Mark is a great, great guy who has been a REAL reporter in past lives. The other Marc returns Monday morning. .. if you’re on the East Coast, you can listen at 6AM-9AM.
P.S. I don’t think that’s pod-casting. Waht you did was just listen to a recorded show with an MP3 player. I haven’t gotten to pod-casting yet. But boy am I armed for RSS feeds now! They’re poppin’ off all over my computer.
Like I said, I’m still trying to figure it out. I added “Morning Sedition” to my subscriptions list on iPodder. But when I clicked the “Check selected feed” button, Wed’s show was what downloaded.
Is “podcasting” the term for broadcasting something this way, rather than downloading and listening with podcast software?
We just got Air America in Austin, so I guess I could listen live, but I have low tolerance for radio (zero for TV) and in the mornings, if I’m awake, I’m working. And I don’t multitask. So my best shot is to download and listen when I can. I just found the AA audio archives though – which looks to be easier than dealing with iPodder, so I’ve downloaded Fridays show and I promise I will listen. . .
I’ve never seen TBLT but then again I don’t look at movies 🙂
Just wanted to add that it’s not Easter out here and won’t be for a few more weeks yet in the East, where the older calendar is still in use 🙂
As for odd and wackily named thesis and scientific studies, I used to have some stored in a box in my old apartment but alas I think they’re all gone. One was a study of fungi found on telephone poles, another one was an analysis of toxic elements in commercial bologna…
The pigeon one I understand as cities pay lots of money every year restoring and cleaning up bird “droppings” and if they avoid one particular statue there must be a reason for it. There’s a 400+ year old bronze statue in my city that is in serious need of (expensive) repair.
For some reason the taxi one puzzles me the most 🙂
Pax
so…
where’s the link?
probably in the genes, and I’m not talk’n about Levis..LMAO
In the diary, click on the “real world of SCIENCE “… and you’ll be off!
And I was going to go to bed early.
Saturday night Science Frights. Thanks.
Don’t encourage her. She already is off.
i remember Rummy’s briefing of that unknowable statement and it continues to be unknown to me how any reporter knowingly sat through that with a straight face much less knowingly repeated it as some known universal theory of ‘unknown knowns’ that make knowing people really just go ‘I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about’.
Known news is good news or is that no news is bad news or is it knowing good news is better than knowing bad news(ala faux known news) but I digress from knowing what I’m talking about into unknown jibberish oh wait-Rummy’s already been there and continues to unknowingly do that..