The Daily Show: July 19, 2006

First of all, there's no question we're at war now, because a 24-hour news channel has finally packaged the violence in a dramatic musical montage ("Is Tears for Fears in the back room of MSNBC?"). Got it? Good. Jon worked his history buff angle and brought up the 30th anniversary of Entebbe. It all took place in less than a few hours, there were minimal casualties, it was surgical, stunning. As for the issue in Lebanon, it seems as though Israel is trying to crack the bottom part open, flip it and actually shake the hostages out. Not quite the same case as Entebbe. But either way, it'll make a great movie of the week.

Jon made a joke he was very proud of (riff in the GOP = Dennis Hastert in low-rise pants). Rob Corddry ran in and gave Jon a high-five, Ed Helms did a spit-take at home, Dan Bakkedahl squeezed his sunscreen a little too hard, Jason Jones chuckled politely as he sipped tea in his smoking jacket ("Mmm. Quite amusing, that") and Samantha Bee said to her baby, Piper, "Why aren't you laughing? What're you... stupid?" Haha, I love it when Jason or Samantha bring out Piper. That poor kid is going to have so much air-time by the time she's even a year old.

"Hard Cell": Bush recently vetoed a bill for stem cell research. There was also a Senate debate on the very same subject... The big star of the event was Senator Brownback, who had a really creepy presentation. First, he did some nonsense about destroyed eggs not producing any bald eagles, even though eagles aren't really eggs, but eagles come out of eggs, and blah blah blah. "The eagle comes out of the egg... By that logic, Senator Brownback is a vagina!... I'm going to guess that sentence has never been uttered." Brownback outdid himself when he showed a little kid's drawings of sad little embryos. Good lord. I laughed for about five minutes straight.

A few days ago, TDS talked about Ted Steven's remarks on the Net Neutrality issue. Resident Expert John Hodgman (whoo!) put his spin on the topic. Was he wearing a teddy bear tie? Distracting. When he was trying to set up an example, he said to Jon, "Let's say we're both computers..." and Jon kept asking him what kind of computer he'd be. Finally, to my excitement, John sighed and said, "I'm a PC." Anyway, he proceeded to explain all the different things that get passed through the Internet: spam, videos of lonely teens practicing with their light sabers, comical re-imaginings of movie premises, cats dressed as nuns eating from dishes of gravy... Oh, and Chuck Norris jokes. It's probably pretty sad that I still laugh whenever someone even mentions "round-house kick to the face".

The night's guest was James Maguire, author of American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds. He and Jon discussed the kids of the spelling bee world and what happens after the competition is over ("Do you turn pro now?"). I a word-geek like Jon (he was in Wordplay, remember?) really enjoy topics like this. I, on the other hand, was once stuck next to a crazed spelling bee fanatic on a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco once, so I'm pretty much sick that world now.

Jon/Stephen: Stephen Colbert revealed that he was once the spelling champ of South Carolina... That is, he argued with the judges until they gave up and handed over the trophy. Moment of Zen: Sam Brownback is one crazy mofo.

Jon also took a moment to thank Breyer's ice cream for being nice to his audience while they were queuing. Aww, I thought that was sweet (HA! "Sweet". Like ice cream. Yeah).