A Fight Night extravaganza! A metaphorical one, at least!

One more “wonder cover” worth noting: the current issue of The New Yorker, courtesy of Michelle-and-Barack-in-the-Oval-Office satirist Barry Blitt:

It’s unfortunate that the nominations for Magazine Cover of the Year have already been set. Because, were they still in play, Entertainment Weekly‘s current cover–Stewart and Colbert recreating the infamous New Yorker tableau, or, satirists-mocking-the-satirists-mocking-the-satirists–should certainly get a nod. Meta-tastic. P.S. The article inside–in which EW interviews Stew-bert about the role of satire in the […]

Saturday Night Live keeps outdoing itself. The latest proof of that? Its brilliant send-up of the already-infamous Palin/Couric interview:

Senator, you just called Pakistan “PAH-kee-stahn.” However, as Clint noted, PAH-kee-stan is already taken as an unconventional-and-semi-annoying-pronunciation. By Obama. (He’s already got TAHL-ee-bahn, too, for the record.) Afghanistan is still open for semi-annoying pronunciation, though, if you want it (perhaps you could start calling it Ahf-GHAN-ee-stahn? AF-gan-ih-stan?). If not, there’s also CHEE-na…or Cah-NAH-dah…

It’s a red-letter evening for everyone’s favorite crotchety-oil-baron-turned-wind-power-advocate. Tonight, T. Boone Pickens will run his very own post-debate “Live Event”–an online chat he’s moderating, on PickensPlan.com, which is currently comprised mostly of photos of Boone sitting in his office (lots of wood paneling, lots of flat-screen TVs, lots of incredibly supple-looking tan leather chairs, in […]

McCain’s “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left” line just got a very audible chuckle from the famously staid Lehrer. A deviation from Lehrer’s play-it-“absolutely straight” debate-moderation approach? Well done, Senator!

Jim Lehrer seems big on getting the candidates to, you know, talk amongst themselves. In this, he is ostensibly subscribing to the First Law of Second-Person Dynamics: the assumption that addressing someone directly will cause the address-er to be more diplomatic and, er, politic in his or her address. A noble strategy, but will it […]

9:05 – We’re watching the presidential debate on CNN, which includes an “Audience Reaction” meter as a permanent chyron on the screen. Per the Reaction-o-Meter, one can track Republican, Democratic, and Independent reaction to the proceedings–via the dips and climbs of red, blue, and green lines, respectively. You can’t help but think of a heart […]

A selection of stories that got buried in the news of financial turmoil