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One sentence movie reviews
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Published Sunday, July 31, 2011 @ 1:00 PM EDT
Jul 31 2011

The Smurfs:

Does for children's entertainment what lead paint does for children's toys.
-Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

‎That two sequels have been announced is terrifying.
-Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

Keep repeating to yourself over and over: "It gets Jonathan Winters a paycheck. It gets Jonathan Winters a paycheck..."
Widgett Walls, Needcoffee.com

(Thanks to Jason Togyer and rottentomatoes.com)


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Political jokes of the week
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Published Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 1:54 AM EDT
Jul 30 2011

I'm not saying this Congress is bad at its job. I'm just saying that this Congress is equivalent to a skunk with its head stuck in a jar of Skippy peanut butter.
–Jon Stewart

----------

Recent late-night political jokes, from Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog on About.com.

President Obama may have to cancel his 50th birthday party because of the debt limit crisis. The Republicans won't even let Obama raise his age.
-Conan O'Brien

This debt crisis still isn't solved, but yesterday, the White House said it's working on a 'Plan B.' Unfortunately, the B stands for 'bake sale.'
-Jimmy Fallon

Democrats warned that if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the government would cease to function. How would you be able to tell?
-Jay Leno

The government is one week away from running out of money to pay its bills. So basically, our nation has become Nicholas Cage.
–Conan O'Brien

Iowa Congressman Steve King says that if the country falls into default, President Obama could be impeached. Obama could stop that with three words: President Joe Biden.
–Jay Leno

Speaking of the debt crisis, I read that if the U.S. debt were stacked in $100 bills, it would be as long as two football fields and as high as the statue of liberty. You know, just in case $14 trillion didn't seem like a lot to you.
-Jimmy Fallon

NASA held a career fair this week to help former employees find new jobs now that the shuttle program is over. Which explains that guy at the drive-thru that was like, 'One small fry for man, one giant Coke for his Big Mac.'
-Jimmy Fallon

Rumor has it that Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are friends again. There you have it. Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton are now more mature than President Obama and John Boehner.
-Jimmy Fallon

John Boehner told Republicans to 'get in line.' He was very angry. His face turned from orange to mandarin orange.
-Jimmy Kimmel

They say that the United States might default on its loans and China might foreclose. We'll have to move into a cheap rental country or something.
-Jimmy Kimmel

Sarah Palin said that if a deal isn't reached by August 2, nothing will happen. Do you hear that, award-winning economists?
-Jimmy Kimmel

The government is less than a week away from not being able to pay its bills. We may have to move in with Canada for a while.
-Conan O'Brien

George W. Bush will give his first interview about the killing of Osama bin Laden next month on cable TV. It's expected to be the highest-rated episode ever of 'Cake Boss.'
-Conan O'Brien

We are over $14 trillion in debt, but the 'feels like' is $20 trillion.
-David Letterman

We're under a heat dome, and meteorologists believe it's due to Michele Bachmann's hair spray.
-David Letterman

Jeb Bush is toying with the idea of running for president. Well, I'm toying with the idea of drinking again.
-David Letterman

The number one movie in the country is "Captain America." Analysts say this movie is successful because it takes place in the 40's and has a retro feel. The film takes audiences back to a time where America could actually fight a war and get out of a depression at the same time.
-Jay Leno

A record 46 percent of Americans think Congress is 'corrupt.' The other 54 percent think Congress is 'extremely corrupt.'
-Jay Leno

According to a new poll, President Obama is losing support from his own party. To give you an idea how bad it is, today Jimmy Carter compared him to Jimmy Carter.
-Jay Leno

Economists are worried if we fall into default "the good name of the United States" would suffer in the eyes of the world. Oh, shut up. We lost that fight the day we sent the cast of "Jersey Shore" to Italy.
-Jay Leno

Manchester United is the most valuable sports franchise in the world. A few years ago, it was the target of a takeover by Captain Evil himself: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch was going to buy Manchester United for less than he usually pays for a prime minister.
-Craig Ferguson

I had no idea that life for conservatives was so difficult in this country. Tell me a little bit, if you would, about the bad people holding your kind back.
-Jon Stewart

[Video overlay] Sean Hannity saying liberals are "so vicious, so mean, and so cruel, and I don't hear this coming from conservatives about liberals." Jon Stewart: "You don't? That is, if I may say, some of the most free-range, organically grown disingenuous, ideologically marinated, un-self-awareness I've ever seen in the wild."

Is it so wrong we want pundits vetted? I want to get my news from news people, not random people with an AOL account.
-Jon Stewart on Twitter pundits


Categories: Daily Show, Jon Stewart


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Quotes of the day
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Published Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 4:41 AM EDT
Jul 29 2011

Alexis de Tocqueville (July 29, 1805-April 16, 1859):

"The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult- to begin a war and to end it.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.

In politics, a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendship.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

What is most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands.


Categories: Quotes of the day


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New quotations
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Published Thursday, July 28, 2011 @ 6:34 PM EDT
Jul 28 2011

Recently enshrined in The KGB Quotations Database:

If you don't like it, go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler.
-Richard P. Feynman


Categories: Quotes of the day, Richard Feynman


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The Write Stuff
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Published Wednesday, July 27, 2011 @ 6:30 AM EDT
Jul 27 2011

The 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("It was a dark and stormy night") was won by Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, WI. Her grand prize winning entry:

"Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."

Runners-up included:

As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand- who would take her away from all this- and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.
-Ali Kawashima, Greensboro, NC

As the young officer studied the oak door, he was reminded of his girlfriend- for she was also slightly unhinged, occasionally sticky, and responded well to being stripped and given a light oiling.
-Ian Fishlock, Harrow, London

As she downed the last Dixie cup of Listerine and let every drop of its 21.6 percent alcohol content hit her like an icy mint anti-cavity brickbat, Karen squinted at the breasts dangling like two electrocuted ospreys from the powerline of her heart and, with a despondency born of a thousand nights spent gaining a decent skill level at internet mahjong, wondered how she and they had all three sunk so low.
-Anna Springfield, Raleigh, NC

Some personal favorites from prior years:

Towards the dragon's lair the fellowship marched- a noble human prince, a fair elf, a surly dwarf, and a disheveled copyright attorney who was frantically trying to find a way to differentiate this story from "Lord of the Rings."
-Andrew Manoske, Foster City, CA

The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored slurpie all over the damn place.
-Eric Stoveken, Allentown, PA

She clung to the memory of their love like those tiny bits of used tissues he always left in his pockets, which mostly ended up in the dryer lint basket although enough of them welded themselves to her favorite navy blue, polar fleece pullover, rendering it as permanently flawed and unappealing as his name tattooed on her butt.
-Pamela Patchet Hamilton, Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada

Stamp, stack, stamp, stack, stamp, stack, Rodney was going insane from the monotony of the job and the cruel irony of being a guest of the New Hampshire penal system forced to read the words over and over: "Live Free or Die," "Live Free or Die," "Live Free or Die."
-Denise Hendsbee Santa Cruz, CA

The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
-Sheila B. Richter, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1987 Winner)

Dolores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping across smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, due to an overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred-pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center.
-Linda Vernon, Newark, California (1990 Winner)

A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.
-Sera Kirk, Vancouver, British Columbia (2001 Winner)

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.
-Dan McKay, Fargo, North Dakota (2005 Winner)

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city, their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”
-Gordon Spik, Washington, D.C. (2008 Winner)

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.
-Molly Ringle, Seattle, Washington (2010 Winner)


Categories: WTF?


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New quotations
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Published Tuesday, July 26, 2011 @ 10:02 AM EDT
Jul 26 2011

Recently enshrined in The KGB Quotations Database:

They say you can't do it, but remember they aren't always right.
-Casey Stengel

I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


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Excuse me...
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Published Monday, July 25, 2011 @ 2:10 AM EDT
Jul 25 2011

...but what part of "automatic" don't you understand?


Categories: Photo of the day, WTF?


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Happy Birthday TDS
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Published Sunday, July 24, 2011 @ 7:46 AM EDT
Jul 24 2011

The Daily Show was 15 years old this past Thursday, and for the past 12 years it's been The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Since then, the program has won over a dozen Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards, and 44% of those participating in a 2009 Time magazine online poll voted Stewart "America's most trusted newscaster," 15% ahead of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.

Stewart calls his show "fake news," and while the segments feature biting satire and over the top delivery, it often reports stories with far more impact and context than corporate media outlets. It's particularly incisive when the show's staff of researchers assembles clips of politicians contradicting or denying prior statements. "What is it with you guys?" Stewart once asked after one the damning compilations. "Don't you realize we save the tapes?"

The most egregious example was Senator John McCain. The Arizona Republican's self-deprecating style and maverick persona had been a Stewart favorite, and McCain appeared 15 times between 1999 and the start of his 2008 presidential campaign. But the senator's prevarications and backtracking finally prompted The Daily Show to produce one of its sharpest, most scathing segments:

While other media outlets did cover McCain's brain-detonating "I'm not a maverick" claim, only The Daily Show and, later, David Letterman, excoriated McCain for his reversals and outright lies.

Some claim Stewart's incessant, near-religious hammering of disingenuous, dishonest leaders and media figures increases the level of cynicism in the country and causes diminished participation in elections and other civic functions. I disagree. Unlike "real" news and commentary shows, Stewart's idealism has a sharp, deadly edge that is enervating.

Take MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews' appearance on the show to promote his book "Life's A Campaign." While a smart, personable guy, I've never cared for Matthews. He's a professional cynic whose take on government and politics reduces them to the level of professional sports. The effect of an election or Congressional vote on the United States or its citizens? Who cares? What's important is the game, a game to be won through strategy and manipulation. I could only read a few chapters, and tossed it aside in disgust. Matthews' advice bordered on the sociopathic. He advocated using the same exploitative and Machiavellian techniques politicians employ to win elections to succeed in day-to-day life. It should cause the superego of any decent human being to recoil in distaste and horror.

Stewart dived in with guns blazing. "You're trashing my book!," Matthews complains in the clip below. "I'm not trashing your book," Stewart explains. "I'm trashing your philosophy of life."

Matthews called it "the worst interview of my life." Well, at least it was the most honest.

Anyway....

During his tenure as host, Stewart's delivered some rather memorable quotes, and I've collected here the ones I most like.

Happy Birthday, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We've been through a lot. I can't imagine making it through the 2012 election without you.

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Quotes by Jon Stewart:

Arizona is the meth lab of democracy.

As someone who is not Christian, it is hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America... maybe, God willing, one of you will rise up and get to be President of this country; or maybe 44 in a row.

Even the Stock-Pickin' Chicken is right some of the time.

Every country has at least one museum that says "Here's why we chased you out."

Everyone knows if a Republican comes out of the closet and sees a gay shadow, it means six more years of a Democratic administration.

I know the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, but what I didn't realize is that those people are assholes.

I view America like this: 70 to 80 percent [are] pretty reasonable people that truthfully, if they sat down, even on contentious issues, would get along. And the other 20 percent of the country run it.

If I'd only followed CNBC's advice, I'd have a million dollars today. Provided I'd started with a hundred million dollars.

If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values- they're hobbies.

If you have too many white people at a rally, then your cause is racist. And if you have too many people of color at a rally, you must be asking for something.

It does not matter what we say or do; it matters only what is reported about what we say or do.

It doesn't make it a gotcha question just because it got ya.

It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.

No one's going to march in the streets carrying a sign that says "Be Reasonable!"

Religion is kinda like nuclear power: you split the atom this way, you get electricity; you split it that way, you get an atomic bomb.

Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion. If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?

The congressman had a sex scandal and had to apologize to Bill Clinton? For what? Copyright infringement?

The wisdom of the masses is not always... wise.

They always throw around this term "the liberal elite." And I kept thinking to myself about the Christian right. What's more elite than believing that only you will go to heaven?

We need religion to give grace and comfort to a world torn apart by religion.

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: It wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by The Macarena.


Categories: Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Video


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New quotations
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Published Saturday, July 23, 2011 @ 1:40 AM EDT
Jul 23 2011

Recently enshrined in the KGB Quotations Database:

There are many things that make America grate.
-Erica J. Harris

At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
-H.L. Mencken

We spend the first year of children's lives teaching them how to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson

Love the sinner and hate the sin.
-Augustine of Hippo

An unjust law is no law at all.
-Augustine of Hippo

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
-Augustine of Hippo

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
-Augustine of Hippo

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.
-Augustine of Hippo

The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to Heaven, not how Heaven goes.
-Cesare Baronio

The problem is that religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism in the way that it has been, allows people- perfectly sane, perfectly intelligent people- to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.
-Sam Harris

I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
-Stephen Hawking

That there's a time and a place for everything in no way implies that the two intersect.
-John Alejandro King (The Covert Comic)

Consciousness is a sequence of quantum state reductions.
-Roger Penrose


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The Little Mermaid
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Published Friday, July 22, 2011 @ 1:56 PM EDT
Jul 22 2011

Well, really, my granddaughter Leanna and her dog, Bella. The resemblance is striking, though. Next time I see her, I'm going to check for fins.


Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Photo of the day


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Federal court footnote of the day
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Published Friday, July 22, 2011 @ 12:37 AM EDT
Jul 22 2011

"13Usually we do not comment on technical and grammatical errors, because anyone can make such an occasional mistake, but here the miscues are so egregious and obvious that an average fourth grader would have avoided most of them. For example, the word “principals” should have been “principles.” The word “vacatur” is misspelled. The subject and verb are not in agreement in one of the sentences, which has a singular subject (“incompetence”) and a plural verb (“are”). Magistrate Judge Stickney is referred to as “it” instead of “he” and is called a “magistrate” instead of a “magistrate judge.” And finally, the sentence containing the word “incompetence” makes no sense as a matter of standard English prose, so it is not reasonably possible to understand the thought, if any, that is being conveyed. It is ironic that the term “incompetence” is used here, because the only thing that is incompetent is the passage itself.
-U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 10-10325, Samantha Sanches v. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, in which a Texas cheerleader and her mom get pwned by three Federal judges who describe the suit as "a petty squabble, masquerading as a civil rights matter, that has no place in federal court or any other court."


Categories: WTF?


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The Universal Serial Bus
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Published Thursday, July 21, 2011 @ 12:33 AM EDT
Jul 21 2011

What part of "universal" don't you understand?


Categories: Photo of the day, WTF?


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Quote of the day
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Published Wednesday, July 20, 2011 @ 9:54 AM EDT
Jul 20 2011

‎Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka gave birth to a baby girl. The baby's name is "Trump Granddaughter and Casino."
–Conan O'Brien


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Eligible for Social Security
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Published Wednesday, July 20, 2011 @ 12:13 AM EDT
Jul 20 2011

Kim Carnes, b. July 20, 1945.

(YouTube video of Kim Carnes singing "Bette Davis Eyes")

Truth be told, I prefer Eddie Murphy's version (stick around to the end of this short video). "Once Buckwheat sings a song, it's eternally his:"

(YouTube video of Eddie Murphy as Buckwheat singing a medley of his hits.)


Categories: Eligible for Social Security, Music, SNL, Video, YouTube


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New quotations
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Published Tuesday, July 19, 2011 @ 7:35 AM EDT
Jul 19 2011

Recently enshrined in the KGB Quotations Database:

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph or reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.
-Albert Einstein

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-Ambrose Bierce

It’s said that a woman must do a thing twice as well as a man to be considered half as good. And I bet I know what that thing is.
-John Alejandro King (The Covert Comic)

Every successful enterprise requires three men- a dreamer, a businessman, and a son of a bitch.
-Peter McArthur

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
-Samuel Johnson

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero


Categories: Quotes of the day


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Quotes of the day
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Published Monday, July 18, 2011 @ 7:28 AM EDT
Jul 18 2011

Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.
-Stephen King

Who needs to watch "Falling Skies" or the apocalyptic movies on SyFy? I watch Congress on C-SPAN.
-KGB


Categories: KGB Opinion, Quotes of the day


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We lost Harry 30 years ago today...
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Published Saturday, July 16, 2011 @ 7:41 AM EDT
Jul 16 2011

"Sometimes I get this crazy dream that I just take off in my car, but you can travel on ten thousand miles, and still stay where you are."
Harry Chapin (December 7, 1942 - July 16, 1981)


Categories: Music, Video, YouTube


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Photo of the day
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Published Saturday, July 16, 2011 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jul 16 2011

Badgers? We don't need no more steenkin' badgers!


Categories: Animals, Photo of the day, WTF?


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Land of the dense
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Published Friday, July 15, 2011 @ 9:30 AM EDT
Jul 15 2011

(YouTube video of "Real Time with Bill Maher", 8/7/2009)

Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected President, and I said, "I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country." Well, the station was flooded with emails and the Twits hit the fan. And you could tell these people were really mad because they wrote ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS!

Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a "pinhead." Which, a) proves my point and b) is really funny coming from a "doody-face" like him!

Now, before I go about demonstrating how sadly easy it is to prove the dumbness that is dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq war, 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, 34% still do.

Or, look at the healthcare debate going on now. At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.

This country is like a college chick after two Long Island ice teas. We can be talked into anything. Like wars. And we can be talked out of anything. Like healthcare.

We should forget the town halls and replace them with study halls.

Listen to some of these statistics. A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade; two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.

Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, the way the "Slumdog" kid knew about cricket?

But, not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators. And more than half can't name their congressman. And, among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try.

People bitch and moan about taxes and spending. They have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than one percent. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen. And a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Which is an absurd sentence, because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."

Sleep tight, batshit.

Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America, even though a Gallup Poll says 18% of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid; they're "interplanetary mavericks."

And I haven't even brought up religion. But, here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right. Half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament, and cannot figure out which one came first.

I rest my case.

---

When "debating" someone whose source of history and current events is Fox News, I recall Maher's editorial and derive what little solace I can from it. Very little, in fact. As one of the X-Men observed in a comic I read a while ago, "Stinks to be sentient, sometimes, don't it?"

It's like the Coyote getting a few additional seconds of warning that the boulder's going to hit.


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Homestead
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Published Thursday, July 14, 2011 @ 7:46 AM EDT
Jul 14 2011

("Homestead Town" music video)

I was born in Homestead and lived there until I was 18, first in a third-floor apartment on the corner of Eighth and McClure, then in a second-floor apartment above Jones & McClure Realty on Ninth and Ann. Even then, I recall how people said Homestead was past its prime, but Eighth Avenue was still at nearly 100% occupancy, with two Isaly's, two supermarkets, a McCrory's, Grants, Penney's, and enough foot traffic that you avoided Amity Street at shift changes.

I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach the first time I drove through the town after the mills had been torn down. It's hard to describe- imagine how the residents of New York felt the day after 9/11. And the destruction of Homestead was something America did to itself.

"In its 105-year history," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recalled in a 2006 story on the 20th anniversary of the mill's closing, "the Homestead Works produced more than 200 million tons of steel: Rails and railroad cars, armor plate that covered battleships and tanks from the Spanish-American War through the Korean War, and beams and girders that went into the Empire State Building, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the U.S. Steel Building in Pittsburgh and the Sears Tower in Chicago."

Its replacement, the Waterfront complex? I've been there a handful of times since it's opened, and it makes me angry. The world's largest steel plant, replaced by big box stores selling Chinese crap.

Some people see a shopping center. I see a white flag.


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Luddites to the rescue!
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Published Wednesday, July 13, 2011 @ 1:02 PM EDT
Jul 13 2011

From those wonderful technologists at ThinkGeek.com.


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Dialogue of the day
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Published Tuesday, July 12, 2011 @ 3:02 AM EDT
Jul 12 2011

Kid: You can do magic things!

Crow T. Robot: It's called evil, kid.

"The Pod People," Mystery Science Theater 3000


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Ahem.
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Published Monday, July 11, 2011 @ 2:28 PM EDT
Jul 11 2011

Don't you just hate doting grandparents who go on and on and on about their brilliant and beautiful grandchildren?

Tough. Deal with it.


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Quotes of the day
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Published Monday, July 11, 2011 @ 8:25 AM EDT
Jul 11 2011

E.B. White, (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985)

A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist- nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix himself up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.

All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.
(From Here is New York, 1949)

Be obscure clearly.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

His words leap across rivers and mountains, but his thoughts are still only six inches long.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

Humor plays close to the big, hot fire which is Truth.

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.

I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

Loneliness is a strange gift.

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

No man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.

No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself- a lad of about 19.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

Television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhere. If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run all sights may lose whatever rarity value they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear practically everything, will be specially interested in almost nothing.

The bonus is really one of the great give-aways in business enterprise. It is the annual salve applied to the conscience of the rich and the wounds of the poor.

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for Nature to follow. Now we just set the clock an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.

The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.


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Quote of the day
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Published Saturday, July 09, 2011 @ 11:15 PM EDT
Jul 09 2011

If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it, you're a dumbass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican.
-Bill Maher

(YouTube video of latest "New Rules")


Categories: Quotes of the day, Video, YouTube


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Eligible for Social Security / Quotes of the day
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Published Saturday, July 09, 2011 @ 2:22 AM EDT
Jul 09 2011

Dean R. Koontz, b. July 9, 1945:

Human beings can always be relied upon to assert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid.

Fate cannot be sidestepped or outrun.

If dogs talked, one of them would be president by now. Everybody likes dogs.

Ignorance isn't bliss, but sometimes ignorance makes it possible for us to sleep at night.


Categories: Eligible for Social Security, Quotes of the day


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Unstable female, cats, and AutoTune
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Published Friday, July 08, 2011 @ 12:04 AM EDT
Jul 08 2011

This is awesome on so many levels.

(Autotuned version of eHarmony cat lady dating video.)


Categories: Animals, Cats, Music, Video, WTF?, YouTube


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Quotes of the day
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Published Thursday, July 07, 2011 @ 7:06 AM EDT
Jul 07 2011

Robert A. Heinlein, (July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988):

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

A reverence for life does not require one to respect nature's obvious mistakes.

A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.

Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit.

Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children.

Always listen to the experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it.

Always tell her she's beautiful, especially if she isn't.

An armed society is a polite society.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.

Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to virgins.

Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it's done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

Fulfillment in life is loving a good woman and killing a bad man.

Getting up early does not get more work done... any more than you can make a piece of string longer by cutting off one end and tying it onto the other.

Government is an inescapable disease of human beings.

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion- i.e., none to speak of.

I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is to never let them find out.

In all matters of government the correct answer is usually: Do nothing.

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

Intangibles are the most honest merchandise anyone can sell. They are always worth whatever you are willing to pay for them and they never wear out.

It is amazing how much mature wisdom resembles being too tired.

It never does any good to warn a man about his wife.

Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

Logic is a way of saying that anything that didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.

Love your country, but never trust its government.

Man can be chained but he cannot be domesticated, and eventually he always breaks his chains.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

Never frighten a little man. He'll kill you.

Never try to outstubborn a cat.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time and annoys the pig.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

No matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers.

Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.

One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

Self-awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.

Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other sins are invented nonsense.

Specialization is for insects.

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation.

Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

The early worm deserves the bird.

The nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.

There is nothing wrong with writing, so long as you do it in private and wash your hands afterward.

Was there ever a time when the majority was right?

What are the marks of a sick culture? It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.

Widows are far better than brides. They don't tell, they won't yell, they don't swell, they rarely smell, and they're grateful as hell.

Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs had better get used to it.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

The death rate is the same for us as for anybody... one person, one death, sooner or later.

How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven.

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers.

There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

Television leaves no external scars.

Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket.

If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people.

It is better to copulate than never.

Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.

I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

You don’t pay back, you pay forward.


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Fake headline of the day
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Published Wednesday, July 06, 2011 @ 2:58 AM EDT
Jul 06 2011

From The Borowitz Report:

CNN to Cover New Casey Anthony Murder Trial When Nancy Grace Kills Her


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The official photo
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Published Tuesday, July 05, 2011 @ 8:54 AM EDT
Jul 05 2011

Cindy and I in a photo by LifeTouch. These guys must hate home computers and scanners. I include the link to help assuage the guilt induced by not buying anything from them.


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Observation of the day
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Published Monday, July 04, 2011 @ 8:18 PM EDT
Jul 04 2011

If there were any justice, every time some idiot set off a firecracker within hearing distance of a dog, a canine penis would materialize in the air and take a whiz on the miscreant's head.


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Interpretations of Independence
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Published Monday, July 04, 2011 @ 8:16 AM EDT
Jul 04 2011

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress,

On July 4, 1997, Charles Kuralt died. A journalist for CBS, he had a passion for America and American history. During the Bicentennial in 1976, he prepared a segment for The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite that remains the best "news report" of what happened in Philadelphia 200 years earlier:

Another wonderful interpretation of the tensions before the vote is the song Is Anybody There? from the award-winning Broadway musical 1776, which airs at 2 pm today on Turner Classic Movies:

Is Anybody There?"

From the musical "1776"
Music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards

John Adams:

Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?

They want to me to quit.
They say, "John, give up the fight."
Still to England I say:
Good night, forever, good night!

For I have crossed the Rubicon,
Let the bridge be burned behind me,
Come what may, come what may.

Commitment!

The croakers all say we'll rue the day,
There'll be hell to pay in fiery purgatory.
Through all the gloom, through all the gloom,
I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory!

Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?

I see fireworks!
I see the pageant and pomp and parade!
I hear the bells ringing out!
I hear the cannons' roar!
I see Americans - all Americans.
Free forevermore!

How quiet, how quiet the chamber is.
How silent, how silent the chamber is.

Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?


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New quotations
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Published Sunday, July 03, 2011 @ 6:32 AM EDT
Jul 03 2011

Recently enshrined in the KGB Quotations Database:

If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.
-Woody Allen

You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughta be.
-Elizabeth Gilbert

Some people create their own storms and then get mad when it rains.
-Patricia Aydelott

You don't have to be good to succeed. You just gotta be the least shitty option.
-Sam Halpern

All scientifically possible technology and social change predicted in science fiction will come to pass, but none of it will work properly.
-Neil Gaman

Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Unlike a well-defined, precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.
-Charles Bukowski

The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.
-Charles Bukowski

Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and eight times out of nine I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
-Charles Bukowski

Reporting the facts can change the course of history. Then again, so can Wikipedia.
-Stephen Colbert

Note to self: work on being less note-to-selfish.
-John Alejandro King (The Covert Comic)

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves that we have no great ones.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld


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Political jokes of the week
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Published Saturday, July 02, 2011 @ 7:51 AM EDT
Jul 02 2011

Recent late-night political jokes, from Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog on About.com.

Michele Bachmann is kind of like Sarah Palin but without the charisma- or marksmanship. You know, maybe we should stop telling kids that anyone can grow up to be president of the United States.
-Jimmy Kimmel

Bachmann didn't know John Wayne Gacy was from her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. The town is about the size of the Wayans family.
-Jimmy Kimmel

The next-most famous person from that town is the guy that grew the biggest pumpkin at the town fair.
-Jimmy Kimmel

Anthony Weiner is reportedly involved in choosing his successor. The first question he asked his potential replacements is, 'What's the difference between 'reply' and 'reply all?'
-Conan O'Brien

Sarah and Bristol Palin made an appearance at a book store. Apparently, it was 'Bring Your Daughter to a Place You Never Go Day.'
-Conan O'Brien

Newt Gingrich is entering the hotdog-eating contest at Coney Island. He hopes to win because he needs the money to pay his Tiffany's bill.
-David Letterman

The Pope is now on Twitter. The church is really trying to connect with young people- in a way that doesn't involve hush money.
-David Letterman

Chris Wallace at Fox News asked Michele Bachmann if she is a flake. I think that's an insult to the fine folks at Kellogg's.
-David Letterman

Blagojevich said he was stunned by the verdict. Apparently, he wasn't paying attention during the trial.
-David Letterman

She announced her presidency from Waterloo- a name synonymous with victory.
-Stephen Colbert on Michele Bachmann's Iowa campaign launch


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Your original self-righteous position
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Published Friday, July 01, 2011 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jul 01 2011

A secret memo, intercepted by the folks at The Maddow Blog, providing CEOs with talking points re: mean old Obama nixing tax breaks on corporate jets:


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