Synopsis (April 2004)



105.
"Palme D' Bitch Slap" 
airdate : April 1, 2004

Jon:
What do you think about the negative ads?

Ed:
Jon, in 2004 the negative ads are starting earlier than ever. Firing the first salvo? President Bush. 
(shows an ad from the Bush camp)
Direct. Forceful. Completely lacking in attribution or context ... wow. I give this ad three

DAMMMMNNNSSS!!! 

Now, Bush's opponent, John Kerry has said that he's a fighter. So naturally he hit back, hard. 
(shows a John Kerry ad)
WOW. What a powerful attack on the President's ... commercial? I'm sorry Mr. Kerry, I think you have to get a little more personal. I give this ad only one in a half:

Oh No You Didn'ts!

Kerry's biggest advantage in this campaign might be his war records. Can the president destroy this hero? Let's take a look at that effort.
(shows another Bush ad)
Bravo. He took one omnibus spending bill out of context, and made Kerry vote against it four times. There's a word for people who resort to tricks like that : virtuosos. I award this ad my highest prize : 

The coveted Palme D' Bitch Slap. 

Jon:
All you're doing is breaking down the strategies here. You're not focusing on the truth of the ads. 

Ed:
To be honest, Jon, the effect of the ads is much easier to measure than how factual they are.  I mean how can you measure truth objectively? 

Jon:
I think its the only way to measure it, Ed. I think its much easier to measure the truth of the statement then its effectiveness.

Ed:
Wait? Did I say easy? I meant fun! It's more fun to do it this way! First rule of TV journalism  Jon, fact checking is for pussies. Kronkite taught me that. 

"The Majority Report With Janeane Garofalo [radio]
radiodate : April 5, 2004

Highlights (Ed was only on for about 20 minutes and he was on the show with Stephen Colbert and Paul Rudd)

1.) "I just love these big microphones because they make me feel so important!"

2.) Janeane : That's a great voice, Ed. 
Ed: I've been working on it. 
Janeane: And a smile that will steal your heart. Isn't he something? 
Ed: For those of you at home, I'm smiling.
Janeane: He's got a wonderful, wonderful grin.

3.) Janeane: ... this is a lesser known quote by I.F. Stone 'all people who rent white stretch humvee limos are douchebags.'
Ed: That is a lesser known quote--he stole that from the book of ... fact, which was written by a good friend of mine ... Arnold J...
Janeane: Factminister!
Ed: Factimintster!

"Vh1's 100 Most Outrageous Celebrity Moments
airdate : week of April 5-9 2004

Ed was on this five night Vh1 special about once in each episode:

#91: Bono buying a Concorde plane ticket for his hat because he forgot it, and he needed it so desperately to sing with Pavarotti:

"Clearly this hat was very special to Bono, it was very necessary to pull of this show with Pavarotti" 

#79 : Latwrell Spriwell [L.S] choking his coach:

"I for one can totally relate to L.S. choking his coach in this situation because I remember I was choking this guy once, and I was like 'OW! This hurts! Stop victimizing me!' "

#46 : Brian Austin Green Trying To Rap:

"A lot of people don't know that at Beverly Hills High School, it was a lot of gang action, he was in that stuff, that guy's hard."

#27 : Steve-O from "Jackass" stapling his scrotum to his legs:

"Look, we've all stapled our scrotums to various body parts...if I were his scrotum I'd be pressing charges too."

#19 : David Hasselhoff singing at the Berlin Wall when it went down (and that flashy jacket of his!):

"The most amazing aspect of the whole event was that someone saw it as an opportunity to mesh electricity with fashion!"

"ESPN Classic's 'Cheap Seats' " 
airdate : April 7, 2004
In this episode of "Cheap Seats" hosts Randy and Jason Sklar make witty retorts to a Roller Derby match in the 1970's, and they mention that Roller Derby is yet again trying to make a comeback The man for the job is Bradley Wallace, a Sports Marketing Genius who is trying to bring back the long lost (at least lost since 1978-ish, resurrected in 1998, dead in 1999) sport of Roller Derby. I can't transcribe the whole thing, but I'll bring up the summarized highlights:

"Who are you that you are not suicidal? Because I don't like you and how can you like yourself? But I do believe in second chances, so see if you can get this right: sweet n' sour chicken, sauce on the side, I want one snow pea, ok? If you fuck this up, I'm not coming back to your restaurant."



On sharing his secrets on becoming a success:
"If I told you, then I'd be an idiot. I'd be like a magician sharing my tricks, and what I am is a genius. I'm a ma-genius."

Bradley also makes his secretary believe that he is flirting with her:



GOODBYE, I'M DONE WITH YOU!
Not you!
You and me, we're hanging out.
okay!
What?! Are you hitting on me?!

 

Lemmie do something for you (tears up paper) Pretty cool right? It's confetti...I thought of it.

Retype it! Same exact thing, but re type it! Shave your sideburns! I hate them!

 

Some of the seats at every game will be infected with Hepatitis B. Do you know which seat? NO! 

Hepatitis B + Hat Night = $$$

In the middle of the event we black out the arena, spotlight on a random seat--BAM! Right in the brainstem! You hope you're sitting next to them! 


If you don't shock people, they're not going to pay attention to you.

In closing : If they don't like my methods, I'll pack my shit up and go back to my old job at the United Way. 

 

106.
"Digital Watch : Voting Machines" 
airdate : April 7, 2004
Half of transcript  borrowed from live journal user meta. 

Jon: It seems to me that these electronic voting machines still have some kinks. Heading into the fall, how concerned should we be? 

Ed: Well, Jon, new and unfamiliar technology often frighten people like you or my grandmother, but the truth is compared to the outdated paper ballots of 'yore, electronic voting is easier, more accurate, and more secure, and above all, newer

Let's start with ease of use. E-voting systems  employ the same common sense touch screen technology that makes video poker so impossible to stop playing, and the Indian Casino ATM so darn convenient. My point is if its good enough for a [crystal] meth-fuled 48 hr. gambling binge, its good enough for elections! In fact, a lot of these voting machines run on the same rock-solid Windows platform that never crashes at your home or office.

Jon: Ed, I understand that you're obviously the expert, but to me the important issue to me the important issue is the security. Seems to me that these machines can be tampered with.  

Ed: That's a very valid concern, Jon. Fortunately today's e-voting systems support a robust cryptography architecture, using DES keys in CBC mode with a random initialization vector. Now, I know what you're thinking... "Ed, the CBC encrypt uses a zero seed number so keys could be recovered by parallel processors running a virtual network protocol in a trivially short timeframe." But in my opinion, that's fucking bullshit.

Jon: I don't, obviously, speak for everybody, but I'm not sure I understood anything you just said.

Ed: No, Jon, but I did. And there are at least several other people who also did, people like DemocracyHacker23 and GovSniper17... and while no-one knows who they are or what shadowy government conglomerate snatched them up out of college, I have no doubt they will do a bang up job of safeguarding our democracy.

Jon: But Ed, shouldn't the process of the election be more transparent? I mean, if something were to go wrong, what would be the harm, say, of having easy to read paper printout of who people voted for, we could go back and check?

Ed: Well, it's true, paper could give us a way to verify results, but paper's very expensive, and we've already spent an awful lot of money on these computers.

Jon: Ed, a third of American voters are going to be going to the polls in November, and casting their votes electronically for the first time ever! 

Ed: Yes, its an exciting moment, Jon. We have finally arrived at a golden age of technology, a halcyon era, in which .... (pauses and scrunches up his face) in which...

Jon: Ed? 

Ed: Sorry, the teleprompter crashed. Just give it a second, its going to reboot. 



107.
"Unhappy Hour" 
airdate : April 26, 2004

" Lost Vegas [re-aired]" 
re-air date: April 27,2004

 

"A Voiceover In A Samantha Bee Story
airdate: either April or May 2004

During a Samantha Bee story about how a state only gives out alcohol in bars using mini bottles, Ed does a voiceover about the old days of mini bottles:

"The year was 1974, the era of glam rock and Watergate, but the people in South Carolina had something else on their hands : 

(reads letter. Think that time on South Park where Cartman got all the men in South Park to take back the Confederacy, and the scene where Butters gives bad news to Kenny's mom that Kenny had died in battle, at least that's what I think of when I hear this.)

Dear Mama,

Another fight at Jimmy Applebees place last night. I fear that another man was hurt, (shows a regular sized booze bottle being broken) I only wish that the divine providences would show us  a way to control our portion sizes. 

Yours, 
Lucky.

----

The State House was in an uproar:

"Large glass liquor bottles are a menace to society, and must be stopped!"

From that day forward, South Carolina would move boldly into a world where 1.7 ounce liquor bottles were legal, and the Palmetto state drinking establishments would be a safer place for all. 

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