News Roundup for 9/25/09

Libyan dictator, Col. Harpo Khadafy

-Headline of the day-
"Translator collapsed during Khadafy's rambling diatribe."

How bad was Col. Happypants' address to the UN General Assembly? It literal burned out a translator. Allotted fifteen minutes for his address, Khadafy rambled on for 90 minutes in incoherent nuttiness. The translator threw a rod about 75 minutes in.

"I just can’t take it any more!" the translator shouted into a hot mic -- in Arabic -- and had to be replaced by a fresher translator. The problem? Too much crazy.

"He’s not exactly the most lucid speaker," one interpreter said. ""It’s not just that what he’s saying is illogical, but the way he’s saying it is bizarre. However, I think I could have made him sound a lot better." See, it was Col. Happypants' own personal interpreter who broke down. He supplied his own "because he would be speaking a special dialect only they would understand."

Apparently not.

The translator was given the day off, but then it's back to dealing with the insane and unfocused ramblings of Col. Happypants.

"Ten minutes with Khadafy earns you a lot of annual leave," said another translator. (New York Post)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids! Ever wonder what would've happened if we'd dealt with Nazis the way we're dealing with global warming? Find out with the cartoon "Worldwide Domination!"


Click for animation

So what would've happened? Wir wären alle sprechen Deutsch -- that's what. (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Poll: Three-Fourths Of Republicans Say Congressional GOPers Haven’t Explained Their Health Care Plans."

Yeah, turns out it's pretty hard to explain something you don't actually have. According to the report, "Dems today have been jumping on the fact that the new CBS/New York Times poll finds that an astonishing 76% of respondents say Republicans in Congress haven’t clearly explained their plans to reform the health care system." But it's in the crosstabs -- where things are broken down by demographics -- that things get fun.

When you do that, you see that 73% of Republicans think congressional GOPers have some explaining to do. Not helping any is the fact that it's been exactly 100 days since Republicans promised to come up with an alternative plan.

Of course they haven't, which is the whole problem. I think most people would say that President Obama hasn't done a good job of explaining his plan to build a snowfort on the moon -- mostly because President Obama doesn't actually have a plan to build a snowfort on the moon. See, that's why he hasn't said word one about it. Likewise Republicans and healthcare reform.

Even GOP voters are noticing that little fact. (Plum Line)