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Stevieslaw: MItt's Motherboard Crisis

August 26, 2012 - 9:22pm — stevieslaw

Republicans fear that Mitt’s new motherboard, Empathy III, will not arrive from China in time for the convention. As you have no doubt heard, Empathy II fried during the Mitts attempt at a birther joke. Sal Hapatica, Mitt’s chief for computer simulation, agreed that a joke was a huge stretch for the available Mittsoftware.
“Actually, it was the giggle after the joke,” he told Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter. “We should have never tried to program the giggle.”
For those of you following the Mittepic, you may recall that Empathy 1 went bad during Mitt’s European trip—that sad business with the Brits and their Olympics.
“We need to have Mitt show great empathy with the American public—particularly with the poor and the middle class he doesn’t really give a damn about, and I fear the Chinese are just not taking this seriously.” “If they are late with the motherboard, we will have to go with Plan B.”
“And what’s Plan B?” asked Smokey.
“In Plan B we go with a silent Mittbot and an empathic ventriloquist, but the camera angles will be a nightmare.”
“It only has to work for an hour,” Sal whined. “just during the acceptance speech.”
“After that the MIttbot can just recite the party line as outlined in the Republican platform.” “That platform is as cold and as dead as Ayn (pave the planet) Rand’s philosophy.” “It’s perfect for a robot.”

Somebody Help Me

August 6, 2012 - 10:37am — stevieslaw
Posted on August 6, 2012 by

Stevieslaw: Somebody Help Me
I woke a week ago Monday to find three representatives from Americans for Prosperity; the superpac formed by the billionaire Koch brothers, in my living room. They had somehow learned that I was a registered independent voter in the swing state of Pennsylvania. “We are nearly neighbors,” they said, hoping I knew so little geography that I wouldn’t recognize that Wisconsin is not next door.
Now, every time I walk into my living room, one of the three gives me a 50 second spiel on why Obama is bad for America. Yesterday, I got the spiel three times while I was shaving in my upstairs bathroom. Now, I have 30 sheets of toilet paper stuck to my face, in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. What’s worse is they are apparently planning to stay until after the November election.
I tried to convince them that it would make more sense to spend 50 million dollars or so bribing people to vote their way. I suggested that they offer a $10 coupon, redeemable at Chik-Fil-A restaurants, for a vote for Romney, but they reminded me that those people are already in their camp.
When I suggest they leave—which I do often, they mumble a few words about corporations, people and first amendment rights.

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I am the King of England

August 2, 2012 - 12:37pm — stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: I am the King of England

 by

In my freshman year at college, my calculus professor set out to show the students in his class how woefully undereducated they were. He offered up the following challenge: If he could prove that 2=1, than we must recognize that he was not only a college professor, but also the King of England and we must address him as his highness for the entire semester. The proof involves some simple algebra and most of my (engineering undergrad and grad) students pick up the trick easily. If
a=b, and we multiply by a,
we have aa=ab and by subtracting bb: aa-bb=ab-bb.
Factoring gives (a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b), and dividing by (a-b) gets us to
a+b=b and since a=b
then 2b=b.
Dividing by b, 2=1.
Got that? If Andrew Hacker, writing in the prestigious NY Times Sunday Review, has his way your children won’t. Andrew argues in “Is Algebra Necessary?” that we should drop the teaching of algebra (and calculus and trigonometry) because our students’ inability to learn it is the main reason they drop out of high school and college. Thank goodness he doesn’t suggest that the students try harder to learn it and the teachers harder to teach it. No. Andrew believes that by forcing these students to leave school because they can’t pass math, we are decimating our future talent pool.

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Mitty Unwitty

August 1, 2012 - 10:10am — stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Mitty Unwitty
When Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, ran down The Mitt’s campaign spokesperson, Iwana More, at his family vacation compound in Nantucket, he found Iwana pumped up and crowing.
“Mitt’s overseas tour was a great victory,” she said. “If nothing else, it showed what a quick study the Mittski is.” “He learns from every life experience,” she intoned—“just like you would expect any great leader to do.” “You must admit,” continued Ms. More, “that after insulting the British and the Palestinians and trivializing the problem with the Iranians, Mitt came through by not once insulting the Poles.” “That was not easy,” she said with a polished grin. “The desire for witty Mitty to tell Polish jokes was almost unbearable.”
“Mitt showed great self-restraint,” said Iwan. “Not telling Polish jokes in Poland is the sort of deeply reasoned foreign policy we can expect from a Romney regime.”
Smokey, barely listening, thought “Did you hear the one Borowitz did on a Jew, a Brit, and a Pole who walk into a bar…”

Democrats Defy NRA

July 26, 2012 - 11:19am — stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Democrats Defy NRA

Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, has learned that liberal Democrats plan to introduce legislation that will change the nature of assault weapon ownership and use in America forever.

Spokesperson, Ima Cooked, said “The bill we are bringing to Congress today will require that anyone purchasing an assault weapon or assault weapon ammunition affirm, in a signed affidavit, never to mow down anyone with insufficient health insurance coverage. Read more »

Stevieslaw: Too Big to Football

July 21, 2012 - 11:00am — stevieslaw

Smokey Diamond, our ace reporter, has always been excitable but lately she has been unable to sleep.  It seems that all she can manage are cap naps. She prowls around the house and the yard at all hours.  When I ask what’s wrong, she mumbles something about banks and too big to fail.  She has taken to calling Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan and other bank CEO’s, ostensibly to ask for information for Stevieslaw, but really to find out whether or not they have been sleeping and eating well.

On the basis on our recent experience, her mantra has become “If the banks fail, we fail twice.” She certainly has a point.  If the banks do something stupid and get into hot water, the economy falters and the little guy gets it on the chin.  Then, rather than punishing them, we have to rush in to help as they are too big to fail. Read more »

Tom Corbett to Resign

July 19, 2012 - 12:32pm — stevieslaw
Posted on July 19, 2012 by

Stevieslaw: Tom Corbett to Resign
In another Stevieslaw exclusive, our intrepid reporter Smokey Diamond has learned that Tom Corbett will resign as Governor of Pennsylvania on July 31, 2012. According to Corbett spokesperson, D.L. Sayers, the Governor has, after a great deal of soul-searching, concluded that his election could never be certified because of widespread and bipartisan voter fraud. “The Governor,” continued Sayers “Urges all current office holders, particularly those who hold strong views on voter fraud as a driver of election results, to follow his example and step down.

Contempt

July 12, 2012 - 11:42am — stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Contempt
The Republican controlled House of Representatives, fulfilling their constitutional duty to kill time between election campaigns, voted for the 31st time to repeal all or part of the Health Care Bill. Surprisingly, the vote did not improve their congressional approval rating, which is hovering around 10%.
Smokey Diamond, our investigative reporter, was able to get to Maddy Hatter, spokesperson for the powerful “Beat a Dead Horse Committee.” on a yacht just off the coast of Nantucket.
Maddy was furious. “The plans are,” she said, “to hold roughly 279 million Americans in contempt of Congress.” “They clearly are,” she added, “And they often say as much.” “And, this time we have done the math. There are roughly 314 million people is the US. Subtracting the nearly 4 million babies and multiplying through by the 90% that thumb their noses at Congress, gives us our number. How is that for accuracy and fact checking,” she trumpeted.

Maddy said that the House will spend the time between now and the November election reading the names of contemptuous Americans. “We feel it’s the best thing we can do for the country at this time.” Fox News agrees and, sadly, for once they may be right.

A Ditty for Mitty

July 11, 2012 - 12:14pm — stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: A Ditty for Mitty
Smokey Diamond, our intrepid investigative reporter, is so fearless that we at Stevieslaw are often worried her “nine lives” might not be nearly enough. Yet, even Smokey has a softer side. Late in the evening, she likes nothing better than to curl up around some warm milk and spend an hour watching the Limerick channel. It’s got lots of Edward Lear and other nonsense read by Fox News reporters. Remember Edward Lear…
There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, ‘Does it buzz?’
He replied, ‘Yes, it does!’
‘It’s a regular brute of a Bee!’
I think that deep down Smokey believes that certain poems are easily associated with certain people. I agree and for Smokey I believe we could find something in TS Elliot.
So it really wasn’t that much of a surprise when Smokey found a perfect poem for just how Republicans feel about their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. We don’t understand why no one had thought of it before. We thank the author, William Hughes Mearns, for anticipating the Mitt with his poem “Antigonish” in 1910. What Republican would be uncomfortable with this description of Mitt:

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

And as a final refrain, one might ask, Ogdon Nashilly,
Why oh why in all of creationy,
would anyone vote for Mitt the Rominey?

Betting with Bennie

May 15, 2012 - 2:07pm — stevieslaw
Posted on May 15, 2012 by

Stevieslaw: Betting with Benny
At Stevieslaw, we were surprised today to get a call from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase. They are trying to replace Ina Drew in their major investments department and Bennie Williams, aka Bennie the Book’s name came up. When I was growing up in the Brownsville-East New York section of Brooklyn (“a great place to be from,” crows the local paper) Bennie made a modest living running the craps game in the local schoolyard. He would also take your bets on the ponies or on the major sports.
“An excellent choice,” I told Jamie, “he has my wholehearted recommendation.” “After all,” I told him, “With Bennie you always knew what you were getting—be it the Knicks and 4 or Our Twig in the 4th at Roosevelt.” “Compare that with derivatives, J (his little known nickname),” I continued. “Even the financial editor of the New York Times doesn’t understand your recent investments in derivatives.” “He can only describe them, again and again, as a complex financial transaction.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t help Jamie track down my old friend. We lost touch in 1967, when he got shipped to Vietnam and I went off, with guilt and gratitude, to graduate school. It was a time when even poor kids with great math and science skills could catch a break in this country.

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