Sketchy

I guess if the election were up to political cartoonists, Obama would win easily.

And Hillary would, apparently, be a candidate for Jenny Craig's next spokesmodel.

Regardless of your political leanings, though, this NYT piece -- covering how caricaturists see your three remaining candidates (funny, they didn't draw Nader) -- is worth checking out.

Keep it in your pants

I actually don't have anything interesting to write (I know, it's shocking since everything else on SFTC is so captivating), but I have to get some new content up here because the Google Ad that's been running on SFTC the last few days is driving me nizzuts. (Oh, no I dihn't!)

Ever since the last post went up -- the one that was chiefly about John Ritter's doctors, but briefly mentions the name of Eliot Spitzer's favorite hooker -- the ad banner over there in the right column has been running a link to a website featuring info about and photos of Eliot Spitzer's favorite hooker. I can't mention her by name, lest the ad continue appearing. So I'm hoping an entry about something completely unrelated will get those tiny little Google Ad people inside my computer (how do they fit with these new thin screens?) to come up with a new banner that has nothing to do with Eliot Spitzer's favorite hooker.

Of course, having the word "hooker" in here three -- now, four -- times probably won't help the cause.

Ah well.

So that's a long-winded way of introducing this question: Can everyone just cut it out with the wacky cellphone ringers? Make it ring like a regular phone. No more Bon Jovi. No more songs-that-only-exist-because-someone-composed-them-as-ringtones. No more Fur Elise. Just make it ring like a regular phone. Then answer it. We get it. You have a cellphone. It rings. BFD. I don't care how jazzy your little electronic-toned melody is. Just stop.

Better yet, stick it in your pants and put it on vibrate, so nobody has to hear it at all.

That "stick it in your pants" thing is going to trigger some funny ads, too, isn't it?

Worth somewhat less than 1,000 words

MEMO

To: People who edit CNN.com
From: SFTC
Re: Your brains

Look, I was as big a fan of John Ritter's sensational sitcom acting as the next guy. Also, he was supercreepygreat in Slingblade. But I don't think "doctors being cleared" in his five-years-ago death qualifies as a top-of-the-home-page-with-a-big-photo "DEVELOPING STORY." It sucks that he died, but in the scheme of things, this is not that important to very many people, and--not to nitpick--but it's not developing. It's already developed. Get over your wacky yellow banners and just report the damn news.

Of course, I have to admit your wacky yellow banner got me to pay attention to the story. Which is sort of unfortunate, because you chose to illustrate the article with a photo of a smiling John Ritter. Take a look:





Call me crazy, but when the first two things you see are the bold headline and smilin' John, it sort of makes it look like this dead guy is elated about the jury clearing the doctors who may or may not have hastened his own death. Which he probably isn't/wasn't. (I'm just guessing.)

I understand he was a comic actor and tended to smile a lot, so you were probably limited in your Ritter photo options. And running a shot of him in his postmortem state would not have gone over well. But, maybe a shot of the courtoom scene? His relatives after hearing the news? A retro shot of Joyce DeWitt?

C'mon. Try harder next time.

Oh, but thank you for your diligent, in-depth coverage of Ashley Alexander Dupre's MySpace page. Keep up the good work there.

Oh, and those Spitzer 2012 campaign buttons?

So much for any talk about Eliot Spitzer, Great Punisher of Corporate Malfeasance, running for the nation's highest office in 2012. Or ever.

Well, at least he wasn't caught in a Minneapolis bathroom stall. That would have been embarrassing.

Man, I am SO tanked!

Say what you will about all of W.'s malapropisms during his seven-year reign of stupid, but at least he generally sounded... sober.

Now, when you hear the crap come out of his mouth, don't you get the impression our prez is like the guy at the party who's had three extra Milwaukee's Bests and stayed about two hours too long?

There was the time in September when he was in Australia --that's the big island with the kangaroos and stuff -- speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation -- that's APEC. A-P-E-C -- and referred to the event as "OPEC." And then topped that by telling everyone how nice the "Austrian" people had been during his trip.

But I swear it's gotten sillier.

Last week -- and this is very timely, since the World Series was four months ago -- he honored members of the world champion Boston Red Sox at the White House. If you'd like to be wowed and amazed by his verbal strategery, the transcript of the whole hellacious speech is here.

Among his gems was his shout-out for the Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who is from Japan and therefore handles his interviews through translators (something the president probably should have considered about seven years ago). And W said: "Red Sox Nation extends beyond the South Lawn, extends beyond New England -- it obviously goes to the Caribbean and even the Far East. So we welcome Japan's Daisuke here to the South Lawn. His press corps is bigger than mine. And we both have trouble answering questions in English. "

Yeah.

Of course you grew up in the United States, where English is taught in many schools, before going to Yale, where -- I'm told -- most classes are taught in English. And Matsuzaka is, well, a baseball player who, until last year... how do I put this?... lived in Japan.

The drunk-dude patois continued when he alluded to slugger Manny Ramirez, who quite sensibly, I think, decided to skip the ceremony. Quick backstory for you: Ramirez had also ditched the White House ceremony after the Sox' victory in 2005; his excuse then was that had to visit his sick grandmother. So W offered this: "I'm sorry... Manny Ramirez isn't here. I guess his grandmother died again. Just kidding. Tell Manny I didn't mean it."

Ah, the dead grandmother jokes. Nice.

Incredibly, White House staff left the microphone turned on for the rest of the ceremony. No mention in the transcript of whether his next words were, "I just love you, Manny. Don't hate me. Wow, I am really lit! Manny, you're my bud!"

Guns don't kill people...

... idiotic lawmakers do.

It's neat that anyone can be chosen to represent their fellow citizens through the electoral process. Or maybe "neat" isn't the right term, so much as... um... dangerous.

A news item today made me wonder if there's a way we can require that anyone registering to run for office take an intelligence test. That way, we could make it just a little tougher for raging lunatics like Arizona state senator Karen S. Johnson to get their wack-job ideas turned into law.

After reading the first few paragraphs of this New York Times article about legislators who want to "allow people with a concealed weapons permit... to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities," I double-checked my calendar to make sure that it wasn't April Fool's Day already. Nope, still early March. Apparently, this is not a joke. And, it turns out that 15 states are considering legislation to make it easier for people on college campuses to pack heat.

This is, of course, a response to the string of shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, and, unfortunately, too many other colleges and universities. But the argument that there are too many people being killed by guns, so let's make sure more people have guns? Yeah, that logic escapes me.

Maybe it would be a deterrent to would-be shooters if they knew that their would-be victims were armed? Right, except did anyone notice that the shooters don't much seem to care if they lose their lives? And doesn't it seem like these are folks who aren't exactly running down a checklist of pros and cons before they go insane and start shooting up classrooms?

Maybe Ms. Johnson's heart is in the right place? Would you rethink that notion when you read about her initial plan for the Arizona law? Reports the Times: "She initially wanted her bill to cover all public schools, kindergarten and up, but other lawmakers convinced her it stood a better chance of passing if it were limited to higher education."

So thank you, Karen S. Johnson. Now that I've resolved to never step foot on a college campus in Arizona again, I feel safer already.

Tiny bubbles

I was as shocked -- shocked, I tell ya' -- to learn this morning that the makers of Airborne have apparently agreed to settle a class-action law suit brought by a bunch of people (classy activists, apparently) who claim -- get this -- the product doesn't actually do anything to prevent or cure colds.

Wha?!

Hasn't anyone told these people that Oprah said the stuff was legit?

A New York Times blog today says that after a 2007 ABC news report that questioned Airborne's remarkable health-benefit claims, the lovable folks behind the cute little tubes of pellets-that-make-your-water-fizz-and-turn-green quickly removed said claims from their packaging and ads.

Guess so. The package that's sitting on my desk now ("Effervescent Health Formula") includes only a vague claim about the product: "The natural ingredients in Airborne's unique formulation reflect state of the art antioxidant, electrolyte, and herbal technology." Day-um. Now what am I supposed to do when I feel a cold coming on? Next, they'll tell us that Emergen-C (8000 percent of your daily vitamin C!) isn't actually that good for us, either.

I submitted a claim through the Airborne Settlement website so I can be reimbursed for some of my Airborne purchases over the last few years. Whatever settlement I get, I'll probably use it to buy more Airborne -- I love making my water all fizzy.