GOP Debate Minus Trump Tweets (2 of 3)

We continue the multiple blog entries about last night's debate (it is now past 9:00 a.m. in Dubai) with tweets from various folks across the political spectrum in America (ok, most of these folks seem to have a liberal bias as I do), and perhaps even Canada...

 (pictured are 1) Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly; 2) a windmill in Elkhorn, Iowa; and 3) Ben Carson):

1) Patton Oswalt: How ya gonna deal with Putin? With shootin-ass-batin' and root-a-man-hootin

2) Dean Obeidallah (standup comic and activist of Muslim heritage): Please turn off Ben Carson's microphone.

3) Edward Luce: Ben Carson was totally wise to boycott this debate.

4) Carlos Lozada (Washington Post): Finally, the Estonia question.

5) PBS Newshour: Jumping from religion back to foreign policy.

6) Kai Ryssdal (NPR's Marketplace): Hahahahahahahahahaha. President Ben Carson. Man that cracks me up.

7) Karen Tumulty (Washington Post): Rand Paul is having a debate with Rand Paul about abortion.

8) E.J. Dionne (Washington Post): Marco Rubio like John Kasich talks about faith and obligation to the poor. Interesting how Rubio mixes this with appeal to evangelicals.

9) Alexandra Petri (Washington Post): Ohhhhhh........nothing like the sight of a stage full o' men talking about abortion.

The Top SNL Cast Members (according to The Nerve): Sorry, Tom Petty

Greetings to our blog readers in Bulgaria, Estonia and Scotland.....

Today, in honor of the 40th anniversary of "Saturday Night Live," the live American sketch comedy show which first aired in October of 1975, we provide you with a list of the top best not ready for prime time players as written by our good friend pop culture journalist/blogger Phil Nugent of "The Nerve" who will hopefully not sue us for the amount of money former cast member Joe Piscopo (Nugent ranked him 60th, we would place him higher) annually.

Here is the list:

1. Eddie Murphy (1980-84, pict. top)

2. Will Ferrell (1995-2002, pict. center)

3. Bill Murray (1977-80, pict. bottom)

4. Phil Hartman (1986-1994; he was murdered in 1998)

5. John Belushi (1975-79, he died in 1982 at age 33)

6. Dan Aykroyd (1975-79)

7. Amy Poehler (2001-08)

8. Mike Myers (1989-95)

9. Dana Carvey (1986-93)

10. Tina Fey (2000-06)

Here are other cast members as they were ranked:


Dennis Miller ( #67)

Fred Armisen (#37)

Maya Rudolph (#34)

Jane Curtin (#21)

Norm Macdonald (#26)

Tim Meadows (#12)

http://www.thenerve.com

PS: We subtitled this entry "Sorry, Tom Petty," because the singer once made fun of Murphy and Piscopo in a song he wrote.....

Top Ten Comics from Sunday, Jan. 25th Roanoke Times: Get Fuzzy Finally Comes in First

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Wales and India.

The images above are of 1) Jeb Bush (for "Doonesbury) ; 2) Danny DeVito (the boss) and the late Andy Kaufman on the '70s sitcom "Taxi" (for "Pearls Before Swine) and 3) Warren Beatty as "Dick Tracy" (for "Funky Winkerbean").

Kudos to Stephan Pastis of "Pearls Before Swine" for having the guts and gumption to make fun of his boss comics syndicator John Glynn!

"Get Fuzzy" usually takes places second place in our comics survey, but today, it finally made it to the top slot.

Here is our top ten from the latest Sunday edition of "The Roanoke Times:"

1) Get Fuzzy

2) Doonesbury (made fun of Jeb Bush)

3) Pearls Before Swine (made fun of Big Boss Man)

4) Speed Bump

5) Dilbert

6) Funky Winkerbean (featured 'Dick Tracy')

7) Agnes

8) Garfield

9) Jump Start

10) Red and Rover (featured Snoopy from "Peanuts"!)

http://comicskingdom.com/

http://www.gocomics.com/explore/comics


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Our Favorte Comic Strips from Sunday, Dec. 14th Roanoke Times: Drones Away

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Estonia and New Zealand.....

Today, we turn our attention to our 10 favorite comic strips from the Sunday, Dec. 14th edition of "The Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va. (yes, we are a bit behind schedule).

Our top choice is "Pearls Before Swine," in which Rat, one of the three title characters along with Goat and Pig, promises that if he is elected president that he will get one drone to spy on every person on earth at all times; hey, I'd still vote for him over Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney! (forgive the political humor).

"Speed Bump" has a hilarious take on what modern tech would have been like in medieval times, and these means trouble for Sir Textalot as he faces an opponent in a horseback joust in Dave Coverly's single-panel comic strip. Hence, the reason for our image of a "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" poster.

Lastly, "Family Circus" makes a rare appearance in our top ten with a strip that depicts every parent in a grade school auditorium taking photos and videos with mobile devices, we thought it would be humorous to go with an image of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (middle) as this would assuredly be a difficult play for youngsters to perform.

Here is our top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Speed Bump

3) Doonesbury

4) Garfield

5) Dilbert

6) Zits

7) Get Fuzzy

8) Funky Winkerbean

9) Non-Sequitur

10) Family Circus

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com

Quote from Che Guevara: Little Thinkers (2 of 16)

Greetings to our blog-readers in El Salvador, Estonia and Egypt.

Since the Myrtle Beach Tea Party in Myrtle Beach, SC, thinks all of us Democrats, even those of us on the center-left are Marxists, socialists, perhaps there is little harm in posting a comment from Che Guevara, the Latin American revolutionist who was assassinated/executed in Bolivia at the age of 40 in 1967.

Guevara was a leading figure in the Cuban Revolution which brought Fidel Castro to power, which makes us think it would be very ironic to see someone sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt at the Greensboro Gun Show, which is happening on the weekend of Feb. 1st and 2nd at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC.

We are also quoting Che as he is one of the many historical figures which have been made into Little Thinkers puppet/dolls (seen above).

Here is his quote:

"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting."

SIDEBAR: We learned by chance yesterday that the heavy metal Judas Priest is starting their European tour in Katowice, Poland, on April 14th. Perhaps, someone from Chicago or St.Louis may actually get on an Air Poland flight and head out there just for the show!

http://www.marxists.org

http://www.cheguevara.com

http://www.visitbolivia.org

http://www.mbteaparty.org

http://www.greensborogunshow.com

http://www.judaspriest.com

Coming Soon to This Blog Near You (No Promises): What You Might Expect in August

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Ghana and Italy or wherever you might be today. It's now mid-noon in New York and Atlanta, 5:30 p.m. in London and 7:30 p.m. in Ankara, Turkey. If we are wrong about any of this, we will blame Javier the Intern and Zappa the Family Cat.

Today's image is of the early year American comic actor W.C. Fields (1880-1946), who once professed that anyone who hates children and puppies couldn't be all bad. Of course, he said this a full seven decades before Dick Cheney became vice president (forgive the political humuor-we prefer the Brit spelling).

Fields is buried in Glendale, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, which is home to a very large Armenian-American population. Ironically, we know this because the person blogging this info is a Turkish-American.

If you need to explain the irony, I suggest you go to the Facebook pages for the Turkish and Armenian embassies respectively.

Here are three items we hope to post within the next few days, months or perhaps years:

1) Ten More Things To Do in Roanoke, Va: Perhaps we may even discuss some of the more unique attractions in the southwest Virginia area, including a pet cemetery in nearby Cloverdale and Mini-Graceland as well as some of the nifty places to hang out, such as Alejandro's Mexican Grill in downtown Roanoke.

2)  Ten Things to Do in Greensboro, NC: Though I am no longer a resident of North Carolina, the state holds a dear place in my heart for me. The Green Bean Coffee Shop in downtown Greensboro and the a/perture Cinema in nearby Winston-Salem, which is showing the indy dramedy "The Way, Way Back" along with two other films, would be among the places we would plan to profile.

3) Virtual Postcards: We are hoping to resume the series, which was fairly popular, in some way, shape or form.


Stay tuned.....

DULY NOTED: The links below will actually be for the Armenian Consulate in Glendale, Calif., rather than the embassy in Washington, D.C. Conversely, turkey.org is a web site for information on Turkey, and is not the web site for the Turkish embassy either (see links below).

For those wondering who the ambassadors are (thanks to Google), we can say that it Tatoul Markarian who is Armenia's ambassador to America. His counterpart is Namik Tan for Turkey.

Somehow, we don't expect either of them to be having lunch at Ray's Hell Burgers in Arlington, Va. (a D.C. suburb) any time soon!

http://www.aperturecinema.com

http://www.alejandrosmexicangrill.com

http://www.wcfields.com

http://www.turkey.org

http://www.armenianconsulate.org

Things We Learned on Google Today_ Very Smart Guys Are in Charge in Estonia

I can imagine that if one is a contestant on "Jeopardy" and the 'Final Jeopardy Question' turns out to be: "Who is the prime minister of Estonia?" that all three contestants would give Alex Trebek the evil eye.

But, relax thanks to Google (well, I'm sure Bing has the answer to) we learned that the answer is Andrus Ansip (pictured), the leader of the center-right Reform Party, who just turned 55 on October 1st.

Ansip took office on April 12th of this year. He is originally from Tartu, which is Estonia's second largest city (pictured here). In 1979, he recieved his degree in chemistry from the University of Tartu.

Ansip's political career began when he was elected mayor of Tartu in 1998.

As for the president of Estonia, his name is Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and he actually grew up in Leonia, NJ. That's right a Jersey boy is running the government of a former Soviet republic! Ilves graduated as class valedictorian in 1972, and we imagine he does not have time to fly back to his alma mater during homecoming week.

Talinn is the capital of Estonia, which is the northern-most of the three Baltic nations. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have also become European Union states. Estonia got its independence back from the former Soviet Union 20 years ago.

This is a continuing series, which has run on both blogs, about the 15 former Soviet Republics that have now become independent nations. The remaining three entries will be about Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, which should be interesting (I am a Turkish-American).

SPORTS SIDEBAR: It was a great week for the University of North Carolina's women's volleyball team as the Tarheels won straight set victories at home over both Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia.

On Thursday, Emily McGee, the reigning ACC Player of the Week, scored 11 kills against the Hokies. On Friday, she joined teammates Tia Gaffen and Chaniel Nelson for ten kills each in a win over the Cavaliers.

Ece Taner, who is from Izmir, Turkey (my late father's country) and Aleksandra Georgieva from Sofia, Bulgaria, are the two international players for the Tarheels. The team has won nine of its last 10 games; the only loss came in a home match against Florida State, a team that is currently on top in the ACC.