a small dose of reality

Just hours after her husband Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for masterminding a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, Ruth Madoff expressed shock and dismay at her husband's behavior, telling reporters, "This is not the man I owned nine homes with."  "When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars with someone, you think you know him," she said.  "I guess I was wrong."  Mrs. Madoff said she was kept "totally in the dark" about her husband's activities because he used a clever cover story: "He told me he was hiking the Appalachian Trail."

In a nationally televised speech in Iran today, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordered his countrymen not to stage further protests, warning the nation, "I am following you all on Twitter."  To back up his words, the Supreme Leader then displayed his Twitter account page, showing that he was indeed following 65,875,224 people, but had only one follower, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Ayatollah's announcement sent a chill up the spines of opposition leaders, most of whom assumed that the Supreme Leader did not have a Twitter account.  "You mean he's been reading all my tweets?" said opposition organizer Mohsen Sobhi.  "Oh, shit."

Copywrite 2009 - BG

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''Life's tough.......it's even tougher if you're stupid.''    -- John Wayne

Think about it.  Those who succeed do and those who don't are stupid lazy jackasses.

As he embarks on a crucial "date night" with his wife Michelle, President Barack Obama said today that he is "cautiously optimistic" about the outcome.  "Let's be clear: you never go into one of these things knowing how it's going to turn out," Mr. Obama told reporters.  "But Michelle has given me glimmers of hope."  Mr. Obama said that he and his wife have had only informal talks about what will happen on their date night and that there are "no preconditions."  "Hopefully, we will find common ground," Mr. Obama said.

With his busy schedule permitting him only one date night per week, the pressure is on Mr. Obama to make each one count, according to one White House source who was involved in the planning of this week's date night.  "There's enormous pressure on the President," the source said.  "The whole world is watching."  But Mr. Obama was careful to brush off such talk, stressing that this date night is just one of many date nights to come.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," he said.  "You just need to stay at it, and sooner or later, you get lucky."

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In what is being called a historic deal between the United States government and a major broadcast network, prisoners at the detention camp in Guantanamo were transferred today to the CBS reality series "Big Brother."  The history-making arrangement drew praise from Senate Democrats, who had earlier blocked the closing of the detention camp, and from CBS executives, who had been desperately searching for something to spice up their fall schedule.

"We wanted to be sure that these terror suspects were someplace where they could be constantly monitored," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  "And we could think of no better place than the ‘Big Brother' house, which has a camera in every room."  Moments after the deal was struck, terror suspects from Gitmo were flown to Manhattan so that  they could take part in CBS'  splashy "upfront" presentation for advertisers at Radio City Music Hall.

In welcoming the terror suspects to the CBS family, network boss Les Moonves brushed aside criticism that he was harboring jihadists: "Only one out of seven of them are."  For his part, Sen. Reid said that the Senate Democrats accepted CBS' offer for the detainees after turning down a competing bid from NBC, who had hoped to build a sitcom around them in the style of "The Office."  "There were too many security concerns about putting them on NBC," Sen. Reid said.  "Nobody would be watching them."

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor today of faking a broken ankle in order to get sympathy votes during her Senate confirmation.  "She's only wearing that fake cast to help her rack up votes," Mr. Gingrich said.  "The minute she's confirmed, she'll whip it off and start dancing a jig."  While Ms. Sotomayor reportedly broke her ankle while rushing to catch a plane, the former House Speaker said, "The fake-ankle-cast thing is the oldest trick in the book."

Mr. Gingrich said that if Ms. Sotomayor was counting on arousing the empathy of Republican senators by faking a broken ankle, she was "sorely mistaken."  "Ms. Sotomayor needs to brush up on her law," he said.  "Last time I checked, empathy was unconstitutional."

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Dogged by photographers in the days leading up to the "Britain's Got Talent" finale, singing sensation Susan Boyle (left) has taken to wearing an elaborate disguise to throw the paparazzi off her scent.  In an official statement, Ms. Boyle said, "In my new get-up I am well-nigh unrecognizable, so I hope that this will do the trick," adding that the new disguise involves prosthetics and make-up that require hours to apply.  Ms. Boyle added that in order to go undetected, "When I'm out and about I will refrain from ear-splitting renditions of Andrew Lloyd Webber songs."

But Ms. Boyle's hopes to remain incognito were dashed this morning during a trip to the supermarket, during which she was mobbed by photographers hoping to snap her picture.  A flustered Ms. Boyle said that in her new disguise, the paparazzi seemed to mistake her for someone else.  "Who in heaven's name is the Octomom?" she asked. 

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In what many are describing as an upset victory of unprecedented proportions, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins last night to win the 2009 Stanley Cup, Iran's Interior Ministry announced today.  According to the ministry, which Mr. Ahmadinejad runs, the Iranian hard-liner defeated the Penguins by a score of 6-0, scoring two hat tricks in the victory.

But Penguins star Evgeni Malkin immediately disputed Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim, arguing that the Iranian president did not even appear in the game.  Mr. Ahmadinejad scoffed at Mr. Malkin's charge, stating, "He's just pissed that I was named MVP."  The Iranian president took time out from celebrating his Stanley Cup win to announce that he had just been named Poet Laureate of England.

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Former president George W. Bush has let it be known that he is available to speak on the corporate lecture circuit for $150,000 and will be willing to speak in English for $1.5 million.  Tracy Klugian, Mr. Bush's agent and head of the Ex-Presidential Speakers Bureau, explained the disparity in fees: "He is charging ten times as much to speak in English because it requires ten times the effort."  Mr. Bush came to the decision to charge the higher rate for speaking in English after an appearance in Toronto last week with former President Bill Clinton, an experience which he found "draining."

"President Bush didn't realize he was expected to speak in English at the event, since it was in Canada," his agent explained.  Mr. Klugian said that despite the lofty fee, he had already fielded several offers from corporations who would like to hear the former President speak in English: "I think it's the novelty factor."  But the President's agent said he has had to politely decline requests to have Mr. Bush speak in complete sentences: "I tell them, ‘Thanks, but you can't afford that.'"

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In his first major trip to the Middle East since taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama today presented Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah with a 2009 Chevy Malibu.  While it is highly unorthodox for a U.S. president to present a foreign leader with a midsized automobile, Mr. Obama was upbeat during the presentation, telling the Saudi monarch, "If you like it, there's plenty more where that came from."

Mr. Obama touted the Malibu's "fantastic gas mileage," adding, "not that you'd have any trouble getting gas around here."  White House sources said that they hoped Mr. Obama's goodwill gesture would also serve to promote the American auto industry, or as one source put it, "If King Abdullah likes the Malibu, maybe he'll give one to each of his wives.  That'll help make room for the 2010's."

But the Saudi king seemed to be skeptical of the gift, hesitating a moment as Mr. Obama handed him the keys.  "Is it going to be hard to get parts for this?" he asked.

One day after North Korea launched a successful test of a nuclear weapon, President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with "the strongest possible adjectives."  In remarks to reporters at the White House, Mr. Obama said that North Korea should fear the "full force and might of the United States' arsenal of adjectives" and called the missile test "reckless, reprehensible, objectionable, senseless, egregious and condemnable."

Standing at the President's side, Vice President Joseph Biden weighed in with some tough adjectives of his own, branding North Korean President Kim Jong-Il "totally wack and illin'."  Later in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the North Korean nuclear test "supercilious and jejune," leading some in diplomatic circles to worry that the U.S. might be running out of appropriate adjectives with which to craft its response.

But President Obama attempted to calm those fears, saying that the United States was prepared to "scour the thesaurus" to come up with additional adjectives and was "prepared to use adverbs" if necessary.  "Let's be clear: we are not taking adverbs off the table," Mr. Obama said.  "If the need arises, we will use them forcefully, aggressively, swiftly, overwhelmingly and commandingly."

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In its boldest move yet to cut costs, NBC announced today that it would produce only one episode of its new "Jay Leno Show" and rerun it until someone notices.  The new Leno program, whose scheduling every weeknight at 10 was heralded as a way for NBC to reduce programming expenses, had originally been conceived as a series that would have an original episode every night.  But after looking at the network's ailing balance sheet, NBC chairman Jeff Zucker decided to greenlight what some within the network have called "the nuclear option": producing only one episode and rerunning it ad infinitum.

"To many Americans, Jay Leno is their favorite comfort food," Mr. Zucker said.  "We can think of nothing more comforting than offering them the opportunity to watch the same episode of Jay's show over and over and over again."  Mr. Zucker confirmed that the network downsized the order of the new Leno show after conducting focus groups revealing that viewers were equally satisfied after watching the same episode of "Law & Order" ten times in a row as they were after watching ten different episodes.  "In retrospect, we could have just ordered one episode of ‘Law and Order' all those years," Mr. Zucker said.  "That means we bought 4,000 episodes we really didn't need." 

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Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lashed out today at the current Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, calling the congresswoman unfit to be Speaker of the House "because she's not a good enough liar."  Mr. Gingrich, in an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that the ability to lie seamlessly is the most important qualification for the job of Speaker, adding, "I've been in the job and I should know."  The former Speaker issued the following ultimatum to Rep. Pelosi: "She needs to get better at lying, or step down."

Mr. Gingrich offered a brutal, blow-by-blow criticism of the House Speaker's lying technique, which he said consists of "pauses, ums and uhs, stuttering - all the hallmarks of an amateur."  In contrast, he said, "When I was in her chair my lying was as smooth as a baby's bottom."  He added that if Rep. Pelosi is serious about remaining in her position, he would be "more than willing" to give her lying lessons.  "Being a good liar requires practice," Mr. Gingrich said.  "Fortunately for me, I had years of practice lying to my many wives."

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In a sign that he has no intention of going away quietly, former Vice President Dick Cheney embarked today on a nationwide road trip in a sound truck equipped with a state-of-the-art bullhorn.  The formerly reclusive Mr. Cheney has been a ubiquitous fixture on Sunday talk shows and right-wing radio programs in recent weeks, but his decision to tour the nation in a 2000-watt sound truck shows a heightened determination to spread his pro-torture message from coast to coast.

According to aides to the former vice president, Mr. Cheney had briefly considered starring in an IMAX film called "The Dick Cheney 3-D Experience" before settling on the less costly sound truck idea.  But Mr. Cheney's "Pro-torture Tour '09" has not managed to skirt controversy thus far, as the former Vice President has already had to contend with grievances about the noise levels produced by his high-wattage truck.

Residents of the town of Keene, New Hampshire were awakened at 5 AM this morning by a familiar voice blaring, "We're less safe than we were under the last administration.  Run for your lives!"  As townsfolk rubbed their eyes, Mr. Cheney's voice could be heard extolling waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques.  For his part, a buoyant Mr. Cheney brushed off complaints from the New Hampshire citizens that he had disturbed the peace with his early-morning rant: "All this proves is that sleep deprivation works."

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