Stephen Colbert

"The healthcare bill is so complicated I got a headache just thinking about it. And my insurance company said that is a pre-existing condition."

The Colbert Report, Sept. 29, 2009

NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman on Van Jones' Resignation

"When everyone has a cell phone, everyone’s a photographer. When everyone has access to YouTube, everyone’s a filmmaker. And when everyone’s a blogger, everyone’s in newspaper. When everyone’s a photographer, a newspaper and a filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure.

"Tell your kids, 'OK, be careful.' Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on Candid Camera. And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents (and I’m not here defending anything anyone said) but from all of these incidents, is really keep yourself tight, don’t say anything controversial, don’t think anything, don’t put anything in print. You know, whatever you do, just kind of smooth out all the edges, and maybe you too—you know, when you get nominated to be ambassador to Burkina Faso—you’ll be able to get through the hearing."

Meet The Press, September 6, 2009

The Great Dictator

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible—Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man"—not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Jon Stewart on "socialized medicine"

"God forbid someone replace the health care plan I had before I was 32 and actually qualified for real health care, I believe it was called Excedrin PM and Colt 45."

Bill Maher on Californian ballot initiatives

"We votes yes on gain and no on pain. This is why America's founders established a representative democracy, because they knew if the average Joe had the chance he'd vote for a fantasy world with no taxes, free beer and vagina trees."

Real Time With Bill Maher, May 22, 2009

James Carville

"Republicans just don't understand comedy...it's like me talking about nuclear physics, I mean I just don't have the background to talk about it; they just don't understand comedy. If they did they wouldn't put Dick Cheney out all the time."

on Real Time With Bill Maher, May 8, 2009

Dave Chappelle

"Every comic wants to be a musician. Every musician thinks they're funny. It's a very strange relationship that we have. Some musicians are funny. Some comedians can play. I'll give you an example: Mos Def, funny guy; Jamie Foxx, good singer and piano player. So you never know, you never know what kind of talent a person has. I'm mediocre at both, but I've managed to talk my way into a fortune!"

from Dave Chappelle's Block Party, 2005

Adm. Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence

On the CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques" scandal:
"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

(via First Read)

Frank Schaeffer on the Religious Right and the state of the GOP

"This is the drunk on the subway making all the trouble at the end of the car for all the people in the subway. There's a hundred decent citizens on there, there's one ass at the front end who's molesting women. That's the Republican Party now."

Adam Carolla on Communication

Q: "How did you get your psychological understanding of people?"

A: "This entire planet is filled with human beings. More people spend time figuring out how to communicate with their dogs than with people. We spend no time trying to figuring out people and how they work and what motivates them, but they will decide whether you have a happy satisfied life or a shit life. And at some point on some level I realized I should start studying people. Because if I figure out how people work then I can figure out how to get money from them, how I can get sex from them, how... and I'm not talking about manipulating them or getting them to do shit they don't want to do, I just mean understand people.

Q: "When did you realize that though?"

A: "I don't think I ever really consciously did it but it was always in the back of my mind. I studied people, I wanted to know why they did stuff and what motivated them to do the things they did do or didn't do and then how could I prevent it from happening again to me or somebody else. And so it always became a sort of quiet hobby of mine that I was going to study people and try to understand how best to deal with those people.

I'm a person, I don't want to get beat up, I don't want to get fired, I don't want to get divorced, I don't want to get 'fill in the blank'. You don't want your kids to hate you: figure out how to be a decent dad. You want your boss to give you a raise. When someone is throwing a party you want to get invited. How does it all work?"

(via Thursday's podcast)

Random street interview

Clay Pigeon: "Are you happy enough?"

Russian woman: "Who can be happy, you know? Always there's something to bother you. You cannot be happy. Happy is a moment, you cannot be happy all the time. Only a fool can be happy all the time." [laughs]

Dick Cheney on Iraq

Bob Schieffer: "Do you think that perhaps you looked at the intelligence and saw what you wanted to see, rather than make a real logical analysis of what you saw?"

Vice President Dick Cheney: "No I don't, Bob."

El-P's “The League of Extraordinary Nobodies”

“I've been noticing the fact that nothing glorious can happen anymore, we've run the gamut of our filth / But here I am again pretending spontaneity exists with idiots all lifted out their little gils / Aren’t you disturbed that everything you did tonight is something else you’ve done already and it's meaning is still nil? / And all the people in your presence are just weapons, it’s as simple as the theory that the dying love to kill.”

~ El-P, “The League of Extraordinary Nobodies” from the album I'll Sleep When You're Dead (2007)

African American woman in Grant Park at the rally for President-Elect Barack Obama last night

"I'm proud to hang a flag now, and please don't take that in a negative way. It's just now that I feel it, I feel like part of America."

Ezra Klein, Los Angeles Times

"It's a bit odd that we give the Undecided Voter such a privileged place in American elections. Because from a civic standpoint, few creatures are as contemptible. This election has dominated every form of American news media for the better part of two years. ... Further, it pits two extremely different candidates against each other. Whether your metric is age, ideology, temperament, race, funding sources, healthcare plans or Iraq strategies, it would be hard to imagine two men presenting a starker contrast." (Undecided voters?, Oct. 12)

Campbell's Soup stocks up amid financial crisis, market plunge

"For some reason it is a good time to be selling meals that cost 89 cents." - Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report 10/1

Samuel Johnson

"Life is short, and too much of it should not be spent in idle deliberation how it shall be spent."

Choice Quotes: McCain suspends campaign, urges delay for debate

Barack Obama:

This is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess. It's part of the president's job to be able to deal with more than one thing at once.

Dan Balz, Washington Post:

Privately, three Republican strategists were sharply critical, viewing McCain's decision as a high-risk move that entails uncertain negotiations in Washington at the possible expense of a debate they believe McCain badly needs to get back on the offensive. One strategist called the move "desperate and nuts," and another said in an e-mail, "I don't get it at all."

Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania

What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday? I think this is all political — I wish McCain had shown the same concern when he didn’t show up in the Senate to vote on the extension of the renewable energy tax credit.

Adam Bonin, Netroots Nation:

McCain hasn't cast a vote since early April, and there's nothing in his background or recent statements which suggests he has any particular insight to bring to this problem.

David Letterman:

What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now! I think someone's putting something in his metamucil.

Sen. Barack Obama

"John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives."

Awesome.