2008

Jon Stewart attempted to summarize Bush's speech, despite taping The Daily Show a few hours before the speech even aired. Bush has decided to tap Mexicans' phones. Donning his ever-accurate Bush impression, Jon said, "Jose hasn't been using his phone... I think he might have made the move North."

Back in June of 2005 Bob Sassone reported that a Star Wars TV Series was in the works. The details are now a little more clearer. As of this writing producer Richard McCallum is reporting that 100 hour-long episodes of the show will be ready for broadcast beginning in 2008. As mentioned previously the story will take place in a 20-year span between movie chapter 3 (Revenge of the Sith) and chapter 4 (A New Hope). However, not much more is known about the series, other than it will utilize the special effects that were prevalent in the last three Star Wars movies. There is no news at this time as to what outlet in America will be broadcasting these shows (although, I wouldn't be surprised if Sci-Fi Channel picked it up).

We all need to pray that the acting will be less stilted and that it will have move of the atmosphere of the first three movies. Most importantly, we need to pray extra hard that Jar Jar Binks is not in any one of the 100 episodes!

In these dark times, it is always nice to find some news to be giddy over... Jon Stewart was kind enough to remind us that there are less than a thousand days until the 2008 elections. Of course, there was much rejoice in the TDS crowd.

"Indecision 2008 -- Poll Dance": The victor from the Tennessee straw poll was none other than Senator Bill Frist. Yup. That Bill Frist. The audience didn't seem to appreciate the graph with the straws as much as I did... Maybe they were still trying to take in the news. President Bush tied for third place with 10%, even though, according to the Constitution, he cannot run for a third term. Eh. But what do we care about the Constitution?

Al Franken recently moved his radio show to my humble little metropolis of Minneapolis, the city where he grew up. By sheer coincidence I know one of his producers and I asked them why he was back in his homestate of Minnesota. Turns out Franken is giving some serious consideration to making a senate run in 2008. He hasn't officially thrown his hat in the ring, according to an interview with AlterNet he did recently, but the fact that he moved the whole shebang to Minnesota pretty much makes one think it's going to happen. I think the "celebrity to politician" move is a crap shoot at best, but this is Minnesota, and Al is a hometown boy. I figure if Jesse Ventura could get his hulking frame into office Franken probably stands a pretty good chance.

In the interview, Franken talks about humor revealing a deeper truth (something I completely agree with), but even with his recent political affiliations, do people still think of him as just Al Franken the funny guy from Saturday Night Live? Put another way, can a person add a new dimension to their public persona after so many years of being seen only one way? It has happened, but that move is always a tenuous one.