I'm not generally a big Keith Olbermann fan (he veers into polemicism a bit too often for my taste), but I happened to see a fair-sized chunk of Countdown today (in between periods of the Canada/Russia game, for the most part), and the man was on fire.* There are two things in particular for which I must laud him:

Thing One
For showing, in its entirety, this absolutely magnificent Anthony Weiner meltdown ("Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry!") on the floor of the House:



Thing Two
For this genuinely moving essay about his father's failing health:



Kudos, Keith.

* - Unlike some people.

Nick Kristof goes satire-mode to imagine what life might be like if the news industry were more like the healthcare industry:

By the way, columns such as this one about health care reform are out-of-network. Your insurance plan fully covers columns about many important topics, such as nephrology and Gregorian chant. But politics, health care, international affairs and anything that I might actually write about are all out-of-network.

Quite well done, overall (and significantly more entertaining than the last time I thought Nick Kristof was going satire-mode).

I was recently struggling to remember the wording of Nick Thune's awesome "two birds with one stone" bit, and found the Internet to be utterly unhelpful. Accordingly, in the theme of my Daily Show post from a few weeks ago, I've tracked down the video and transcribed it here, in order to help The Googles. Grateful kudos to Comedy Central, for posting it online, and to Nick Thune, for performing it.

Nick Thune - Two Birds

comedians.comedycentral.com

Thune:

Do you guys think birds ever say, "Hey, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and kill two people with one stone."

Like, the guy who actually wrote that saying, "killing two birds with one stone."

When in history was there an abundance of birds and a shortage of stones? Like, when was some guy just like, "Oh, you know what, guys? Can you just use one from now on? No, no... well, actually, we're trying to conserve rocks, but thanks for questioning the authority. You know what, though? Try and get two with that one. Yeah, there's a shitload of birds. I appreciate it. You know what? Remember that, and tell everyone, forever."