some highlights of the week and half past:

1. GM emerges out of bankruptcy: well that was fast.
2. palin resigns: well that was fast.
3. micheal jackson had a funeral: proving that LA and california are bankrupt, maybe morally but definitely financially.
4. marion barry got arrested for stalking his ex: he is batshit crazy and a disgrace, but we already knew that.
5. uighurs riot and kill in a western chinese province: most people still do not know who uighurs are, except maybe they can pronounce it now. or not.

Many English speakers pronounce it as /ˈwiː.ɡər/ but the pronunciation /ujˈɡur/ is closer to native

question, if “uighur” is pronounced “uj’gur” in the native tongue, why do english speakers pronounce it “wi:ger”, which is so much further from the phonetics? white people fail.
6. steve mcnair is killed: sad, but the whole 20yo mistress is kind of awkward. she can’t even legally drink.
7. al franken is now a US senator: officially making minnesota the most awesome state for politics ever. the body ftw!

that’s all i can remember right now. did i miss anything?

only two people got booed by the huddled masses watching the inauguration in the freezing cold on the mall: president bush and lieberman. silence for cheney, mccain, most everyone else …

there are still some hard-core bushies, but i don’t think lieberman has a base like that. based on that logic, i deduce that lieberman is the most reviled person in the country. everyone hates a turncoat.

“Corrupt. Arrogant. Stupid. Blagojevich Is Three for Three.”

i would disagree on point three. roland burris was a genius move. here’s why:

first we ask ourselves, why would blago even bother to appoint someone to the senate? when the democrats had vowed not to OK this pick, a normal person would have been, “well doggone, i think i’ll just go hideout in my cabin up north and watch the bulls on my tv bought by ill-gotten gains.” but not blago. he was probably more like, “well f*ck that f*cking sh*t. i’m gonna do whatever the f*ck i want.”

actually, i think he picked someone for a reason, not just to f*ck with us. i’m not a lawyer, or a law student, or anyone who has any expertise except many hours watching law and order, but it would seem to me that whatever blago is going to be charged with, it’s going to have something to do with how he was trying to sell that senate seat. BUT, if he manages to appoint someone to the senate who the entire world can’t find ANY suggestion of corruption, then i think he could use that as evidence that he was never going to carry the selling of the seat. in short, he will use the approved senate pick as evidence that he was never going to do anything illegal in the first place. SNEAKY.

but here’s the real genius. for this to work, he had to pick someone who was unstoppable. he had to find someone who 1) would take the job, and 2) be impossible for the senate democrats to pounce upon. he succeeded on both fronts.

1. anyone young and with any political ambition would never take a blago appointment. you will forever be tainted by it. burris, however, IS OLD. 71, to be exact. he has absolutely nothing to lose.

2. blago got everyone good by, i’m saying it, playing the race card. first i’m assuming that burris legitimately cannot be traced to blago in any substantial way. could roddie be that stupid? eh, debatable. plus, burris is a legitimate politician who’s won 7 (or so) elections on his own (atty general, comptroller). but the real genius was that by picking someone who was black, he’s managed to make it very difficult for senate dems to criticize burris. they come off sounding racist, especially since there are no black people in the senate. (what timing! or just more proof that america still sucks.)

so now, everyone is backing off on burris, and it looks like he’s going to get approved by the senate. i predict blago uses burris in his defense and serves no time.

think about it. all the inside players know in advance what’s happening, and it’s only a surprise to the rest of us. people spend days/weeks obsessing over who is going to go where, and when they do get selected, it is scrutinized like crazy whether they’re the right pick. is rahm emanuel the jake long for nerds? and what about hillary clinton as a craftier matt ryan? they both went to boston-area colleges that aren’t harvard and were huge question marks for their respective positions/speculative future positions. if that’s the case, maybe hillary as sec state won’t be so bad.

i personally think this is the best analogy i’ve come up w/ yet.

siddig will def play emanuel in the obama movie of the future.

UPDATED: 11/5/2008 at 5:50 p.m.: sean has pointed out that emanuel also looks like robert downey jr. a normal person would have probably made this comparison first (downey is objectively WAY MORE FAMOUS than saddig). but i’m a freak. whatever.

ideally, the scene will be very new year’s-like. if/when they call it for obama, it’ll be like when the ball drops. 3….2….1….OBAMA!
::MAKEOUT MAKEOUT MAKEOUT::

time to make the dream a reality.

Insiders also revealed that Mr Brown’s memos are in huge print and triple spaced while his own handwriting is getting larger. One senior official said: “If I want him to reply to an email, I always make sure it’s in at least 36 point.” That is five times as large as standard print size.

i just sent an e-mail to myself in 36 point font.

Brown,

Let’s talk about

this very serious

financial crisis.

Besties,

Bush

thanks, jimmy, for the tip.

and if it’s possible you haven’t seen the video yet:

i’m still searching for video of the “cathy” segment in the middle of the weekend update. maybe even funnier than the palin/clinton opener. random and family guy-esque.

P.S. michael phelps sucked. besides all your fancy gold medals, you are a disgrace to the university of michigan. only slightly better than our special teams units.

1. palin seems to defy all logic. if you say bad things, she’s more sympathetic; if you say good things, well you’re saying good things. the best way to stop the palin love machine is to STOP TALKING ABOUT HER. every time democrats and the media say anything negative about her, somehow her stock goes up. i don’t pretend to know why, but i’m positive it’s happening. the glee that lefties display when hating on palin is just making her stronger. the only way to stop this cancerous growth is to ignore she exists.

2. unfortunately, sarah palin is WEB TRAFFIC MAGIC. i know this personally b/c i wrote some throwaway blog post for work about palin and her college career, and now it makes up 66% of my traffic for the month. i’ve written appx 30 posts this month, and the palin one is almost 2/3 of my traffic. that is disgusting. anyway, even if journos and liberal bloggers wanted to start a palin moratorium, they can’t. their web metrics would suck and their numbers-derived pride couldn’t take it.

and so is the path into the barack obama’s black hole of death, where all democratic dreams go to die.

not to objectify women or anything, but miss wasilla 1984 is a very attractive woman (there goes the undecided horny male vote). and she was apparently pretty killer at basketball, too. who wants to see palin vs obama in some 1-on-1 street ball?