Andy Borowitz is the funniest guy on the web.

Rabid Dog Briefly Mistaken for Tea Party Candidate

Receives Standing Ovation at Missouri Rally

 

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Seen on the web.

Philip K. Howard was on The Daily Show last night.  I remember his book, “The Death of Common Sense”, when it came out, but didn’t read it.

I could say that this is irony made manifest, that a show on Comedy Central is bringing light to issues of governance, while cable television shows avoid it. Howard’s point is that once a law becomes part of the canon, it becomes almost impossible to change. The legal code is filled with detritus that benefits few. Howard gave two examples, one each from both sides of the political aisle. One was a juvenile facility in New York state that could not be closed because of a law in New York that any facility that employed union workers needed a year’s advance warning before closing. There were no juveniles for it, and it was costing $50 million to run. But the hands of the state were tied. Howard also mentioned subsidies to cotton farmers that have been on the books since the Depression. Cotton farmers were small farmers, going out of business then. Now, not so much. Most cotton is farmed by large corporations. And they pull down a subsidy of $3.2 billion a year. And cotton is selling at an all time high. Howard has an organization at Common Good. Check it out.

 Here is the video from Jon Stewart.

Howard was at TED in 2010, and here is the video from that.

“The Civil War isn’t tragic.”  So says Ta-Nehisi Coates.  He also says:

It’s really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on property in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them. As surely as we lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of the English, I lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of slaveholders. For most Americans, the Civil War is a sudden outbreak of a existential violence. But for 250 years, African-Americans lived in slavery–which is to say perpetual existential violence. I don’t know what else to call a system that involves the constant threat of your children, your parents, your grandparents, being sold off, never for you to see them again. That is death.

My reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden was recorded as a comment on the Facebook page of my niece.  ”They say you should only speak good of the dead.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  Good.”  Dailykos has reactions from 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls.  The most statesmanlike of the bunch?  Trump.

“I want to personally congratulate President Obama and the men and women of the Armed Forces for a job well done,” Trump said in a statement to ABC News.

The others?  Not so much.  Only one was willing to use the name of the President.

And some snark.

John Stossel is a douchebag.  This is a ‘debate’ between Ron Paul and a black guy who looks and acts like President Obama.

President Obama works the crowd at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  Funny stuff.

Seth Meyers rocks it.