Now featuring pairings from the Music Sommelier!
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(”Short People”)
According to a new study, height not only brings people happiness, but tall people have higher incomes and better education than short people. Tall people also reported more enjoyment of life, less worry, and less pain and sadness. So the next time you get one of those emails offering to improve your life by adding a few inches, ask if you can add them up top.
(”…short people got no reason to liiiiiiiiive…”)
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(Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGopVkivrOg, starting around 1:10 and tagged with “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him” or “Better, stronger, faster”, both of which are back around :45.)
Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his first public appearance since doctors replaced one of his primary components with one scavenged from a machine that had crashed. The new part, Liver 2.0, appears to have integrated smoothly with the rest of the Apple founder’s systems, and we wish him all the best on the continued success of his new plug & play device.
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(”Dead Man’s Curve”)
According to new government estimates, U.S. taxpayers face significant losses from the eighty-one billion dollars provided to the auto industry. Recovery of the funds provided to GM and Chrysler depends heavily on stocks of those companies rising to unprecendented levels.  So the government is telling us that what we need to recoup our losses from the last broken bubble is…a whole nother bubble.  God bless government planning.
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(”Insane in the Brain”)
The watchdog Environmental Working Group has issued a new report on cellphone radiation. While there is as yet no hard link between cancer and cellphones, the study ranked cellphone’s radiation output in watts per kilogram, measuring — brace yourself, America — how much of the phone’s radiation is absorbed into the brain. I didn’t need to hear that last sentence, but now I’m going to, every freakin’ time I answer the phone.
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(”We Are Family”)
Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are the proud parents of a baby boy, seven-pound-four-ounce Sparrow James Midnight Madden. Sparrow *snicker*, sorry, will immediately join older sister Harlow Winter Kate Madden in being attended to 24-7 by a team of child psychiatrists, in hopes of salvaging, well, anything, really. Good luck, kid.Â
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(Deadline hits before the games end, so the comedy is DIY.)
(Beck, “Loser”)
And finally, the NFL season really got underway yesterday, with TEAM beating TEAM SCORE, TEAM topping TEAM SCORE, NFL NEWS ITEM, and the stinkin’ TEAM (kicking a late field goal/scoring a late touchdown) to cover against TEAM. Like my net worth wasn’t in rough enough shape this year already. Â
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If gambling references, however veiled, are forbidden:
And finally, the NFL season kicked off in earnest yesterday, and I’d like to take a moment to apologize to my wife. Honey, I’m sorry about my perfectly understandable reaction to (bleeeeep)ing PLAYER’s (bleeeep)ing INJURY yesterday that MURDERED MY (bleeeeeeeeep) FANTASY TEAM IN WEEK (bleep) ONE. The new TV should be delivered between two and five today.Â
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Los Angeles Police are offering a one million dollar reward for information on the theft of a collection of original Andy Warhol artwork. Police are especially interested in information about a van seen leaving the area around the estimated time of the theft. Witnesses decribe the van as either bright yellow, hot pink, lime green, or cherry red.
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(”For What It’s Worth” or “He Got Game”)
Tens of thousands of furious placard-waving *conservative* demonstrators marched on Washington demanding the government back off and stop interfering with their lives, while in Minneapolis tens of thousands of delighted liberals politely cheered the nation’s chief authority figure as he promised greater government control over their lives.  Imagine trying to explain this to Lyndon Johnson.
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(”Green Acres”)
Former President Jimmy Carter has been telling anyone who’ll listen that he believes that disagreement with President Obama is racially motivated. (Appropriate Audio) I know we want to dismiss him, but he did help create a four year recession, rampant inflation, high deficits, and an energy crisis, so maybe he, you know, sympathizes with Barack.
(Alt punch, after audio clip: “If I gave away the Panama Canal, helped evangelize Larry Flynt, and was attacked by a swimming rabbit, I would probably not be criticizing the rest of America, Jimbo.”
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(”Big Spender”)
Democratic Senator Max Baucus has submitted a new health-care-reform plan that is slightly cheaper that the other plans before Congress, costing only eight hundred fifty six billion dollars over ten years, instead of more than a trillion.  Well, thank heavens we’re finally getting some fiscal responsibility. At that price, we can hardly afford NOT to do it!  Maybe we should buy TWO! Â
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(Any Hendrix)
A Scottish psychologist says it may be possible to *see* time. That’s right. Julia Simner, who studies synaesthesia, says that some people can see dates and times in front of them.  There are also synasthetes that can taste words, feel flavors, and tell what color a sound is.  I remember doing this in college, but it started with tasting mushrooms, not words.
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(”Foxy Lady”)
Megan Fox is opening up to Rolling Stone magazine about some of the darker parts of her past, including admissions of anger problems, poor coping mechanisms, and some body image issues.  Meg, um, if you don’t like your body, I’ll take it. I have plans for it already.
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(”Paperback Writer”)
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/bin-ladens-reading-list-for-americans/
In his latest message, Osama bin Laden has recommended all Americans read three books. Osama’s book club recommendations this month includes “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy†a book critical of American support of Israel, Jimmy Carter’s “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,†and a personal favorite of bin Laden’s, “Chicken Soup for the Mass-Murdering Terrorist’s Soul”.
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(”Puff The Magic Dragon” with appropriate needlescratch.)
Folk singer Mary Travers of “Peter, Paul, and Mary” died yesterday at 72, after a long battle with leukemia. In Mary’s honor, I would like to propose that folk musicians everywhere mark her passing with six to ten years of silence.