Countdown Live Blog: 11/11/09

The Tie: Purple.

Number 5: Tea Party protestors inflated their numbers, and now they will go back to the town hall meetings in misinforming America on health care.  Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is having them done in prisons, on the phone, and now will astroturf their own events.  Roll that not-so-beautiful astroturfing footage.  Meanwhile, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) will personally seek to kill any bill with public options in it.  Howard Fineman, are there some straight jackets available to the Good Oldboysandgirls Party?

And speaking of last week's media opportunity, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN DWARF STAR PLUTO) apologized for use of a picture from Dacau and was not ideal, even for those fifteen feet away.  And she didn't use the word "sorry" at all.  In addition, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart showed the same footage from Inanity's show that was also used by Prof. Harold Hill's program, both on Fixed Propaganda Channel, and Bachmann also used her taxpayer-funded site to promote the "press conference" held a couple weeks ago.  Clarence Page, is there a method to her madness (if she had any)?

Number 4: When paying veterans who are under 65 with over 2,200 passed away for a lack of insurance and Sen. Tom Colburn (R-OK) holds a bill endorsed by every veterans organization increasing veterans' benefits, especially on this date.  And with that, every day according to Harvard University, six of them die.  Paul Reickhoff, a leader of a veterans group of those in Iraq and Afghanistan, joins us.

Oddball: In 1938, Typhoid Mary Mallon, died. The new Highway 64 won't be opening for a while thanks to another week thanks to an avalanche.  In New Zealand, four baby sharks was born via an unscheduled Caesarian Section.

Best Persons: 3 - Principal Suzy Shepard has a new funding source: One dollar = one test report.  Bribery  2 - Pirate Rupert didn't say anything about Prof. Harold Hill was agreeing about Obama being a racist...or did he? 1 - Miss Wasilla was flummoxed about the design of the new presidential dollar according to Fixed Propaganda.

Musical Segue: The Ohio Players' "Fire".  Once again, I'd like to say FUCK YOU FRANK CENTOLA AND HIS FUCKING FAMILY!

Number 3: And speaking of Tina Fey's Evil Twin Sister, her new book, Going Rogue has five chapters.  Five long chapters according to a story leaked out, throwing John McCain staffers from last year under the tour bus, and her faith beliefs.  And she wants to be a talk show host.  (Personally, I might be setting some sort of record for most tags in a live Countdown blog.)  Richard Wolffe, himself an author, joins us to riffle through it all.

Number 2 (Worst Persons in the World)

Bronze - Lou Dobbs has quit his CNN job.  Who wants a used Lou Dobbs?  Who wants a used Lou Dobbs impression? (Where's my teeth?)

Silver - Billo is back in paranoid mode, evoking a note that he has the biggest rated show on TV.

Gold - The American Colalition for Clean Coal Electricity sent forged letters on NAACP to congresspersons on their stand, and then sent two veterans group some e-mails on their stand on this important date.

Number 1: I disliked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (even if he blew the line he had in Airplane! about dragging [Bill] Lambeer and [Bill] Walton up and down the court forty minutes a night on Celebrity Jeopardy!; can you imagine Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery mocking him on SNL if that was scripted?) when he faced the 76ers back in the 1980's, but now he has a rare from of leukemia and now I am feeling for him as he speaks to Keith tonight about the health care crisis.

And with that, we'll see you tomorrow night.

Countdown Live Blog: 11/9/09

Haven't done one of these in a while...and a virtual middle finger as well.

The Tie: Ornage, red and gold stripes...a new one for me.

Number 5: You know you have a losing battle on health care reform when you bring a seven month old baby to do your talking points. Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) tells us on the difference between the House and Senate versions on the bill, and Howard Fineman tells us that Sen. joe Liebman (I-CT) is an idiot.

Number 4: There's a bit of abortion here, still illegal in the USA.  Chris Hayes of The Nation explains.

Oddball: Plug of the week: George Carlin's Last Words.  The book comes out tomorrow.  Here comes that naughty New Mexico soccer player once again, and the Mugshot Halloween Hall of Fame.

Best Persons: 3 - Miss Wasliia 1984 still wants to put "In God We Trust" on the coins.  2 - Mike Huckabee told a reporter didn't like the people he had Tina Fey's Evil Twin Sister on her side.  1 - Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) agreed with Comedian Boss Taitz Limbaugh on calling Obama a dictator.  How about that '45 picture in Doctau?  For that, no music for us.

Number 3: Forgive the fact that the Good Oldboysandgirls Party that they will lead to Democrats losses in eleven months, but they won statewide races in New Jersey and Virginia.  Caucus leader Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) told all on Fixed Propaganda Channel.  And the Tea party is for real in Florida, and Gov. hayley Barbour (R-MS) says that Obama's popular in a Donovan McNabb way.  Comedian Boss Taitz Limbaugh, your thoughts?  Richard Wolffe, what is this stuff going on?

Number 2 (Worst Persons in the World)

Bronze - Comedian Boss Taitz Limbaugh is slowly losing it on Fort Hood by saying the shooter was teased on.

Silver - Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs says that he'a a banker doing God's work.

Gold - Pirate Rupert agrees that Professor Harold Hill calls President Obama a racist.

Number 1: No less than the now quarterly published MAD Magazine says that Prof. Harold Hill is a nutcase, just like the unfair, not so balanced Fixed Propaganda Channel.  Meanwhile, SNL puts Fixed Propaganda Channel spot on via parody, and the Good Oldboysandgirls Party's Express to Oblivion has been derailed according to Rep. Joseph Gow (R-LA), but 29 Democrats voted against it, including Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC).  We give Margaret Carlson Alfred E. Newman's quiry: "What?  Me Worry?"

See you tomorrow night.

Stay Classy, WXIX Fox 19 in Cincinnati and Steve Phillips

Now here's a real case of douchebagging if ever there was one.

According to the boards at the506.com, WXIX, Cincinnati's Fox affiliate opted not to stay with the Atalanta-Dallas and New Orleans-Miami finishes.  Instead, they did a post game show that consisted of no highlights and a presser with Marvin Lewis along with banter between the news anchor, the typical bubblehead bleach blonde and their sports anchor. And believe it or not, they even pre-empted an episode of American Idol for a Cincinnati Bearcats basketball game a couple years ago.

Sound familiar?  Back in the 1970s and 1980s, KYW-TV, then an Philadelphia NBC affiliate, often pre-empted network shows for their own shows.  When CBS took over in 1995, it was time to toe the corporate line as it were.  The worst known case was ten days before Christmas in 1985, the station decided not to air a 4 PM NBC NFL telecast against the Eagles-Chargers game that week.  Instead, viewers were treated to a movie, the 6 PM edition of Eyewitness News and A Current Affair with Maury Povich.

Something tells me that Raycom media, WXIX's owners, will be getting a phone call in the morning from Pirate Rupert himself.

And in other Douchbaggery News, Steve Phillips was sacked from ESPN after his affair with an intern.  The link:

http://www.fangsbites.com/2009/10/breaking-news-steve-phillips-fired-from.html

The Path To Another Championship Is Underway

"Lidge looks in for the sign...the 1-2 pitch...FASTBALL, FLY BALL HIT TO CENTER FIELD, VICTORINO IS UNDER IT...HE SQUEEZES IT AND MAKES THE CATCH!  THE WINNERS OF THE 2009 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES AND STILL THE NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONS FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, THE PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES!!!"

Okay...who's next?  A-R*id, Derek Jeter, and The Best Team Money Can Buy, The George Steinbrenner Still In Charge Even Though He's Not Really Doing So New York Yankees? (Oh, the dilemma of having to root against Keith's team.)  Or the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Orange County California USA Western Hemisphere Third Rock From The Sun Milky Way Crab Nebula?  That will be decided as early as tonight (10/22) in Angel Stadium or no later than Sunday (10/25) should the series go the full metal jacket seven games.  And man, Fox and the NFL look like fricking geniuses now.  Swapping out Minnesota-Green Bay Judas Bowl II and Giants-Eagles in their time slots (1 PM and 4:15 PM) .  BRILLIANT!  Of course, I won't be watching the latter for obvious reasons.  For Pirate Rupert's sports division, this could be the biggest ratings bonanza since acquiring MLB in 1996 and the NFL two years earlier.

I digress though, as Jayson Werth (as I said at the Fire Andy Reid Now live blog "He's due") hit two home runs, Pedro "Pete Happy: Good field, no hit" Feliz and Shane-O Vic added homers of their own and the Dodgers were dead after that, 10-4.  See you at FARN next Wednesday (10/28)!

In Honor Of Talk Like A Pirate Day...

Last year's second Worst Person in the World, arrrrrr...

Quick Notes on Wednesday (7/22)

We have important news on Wednesday (7/22).

President Obama is scheduled to have a press conference at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT on all major over-the-air channels except for Fox, which will air So You Think You Can Dance instead, and as per the Obama White House protocol, will not be answering any questions from anybody at Fixed Noise as punishment. I'm lucky that the Phillies game this Wednesday is an afternoon affair with Da Cubs, but the game August 19 is a night time affair with Arizona (it's sold out because of a Brad Lidge figurine giveaway), that is the date for the Season Two finale of I Survived a Japanese Game Show.

As for Countdown? Live show at 9 PM, and followed at 10 by the live blog of ISaJGS. ABC dumped a PrimeTime special on oil to make room for the presser.

MLB's TV Partners Prohibits You From Seeing The Last Two World Series Champions Play Each Other...Unless You Have Cash Monies, Homie

There are assholes, and then there are TV programmers. Both seem to have their heads up their arrears at the same time. Take for example, the folks at TBS, ESPN, FOX and MLB Network.

Please.

On the weekend of June 12th through June 14th, the last two teams that won the World Series - the Boston Red Sox (2007) and the Philadelphia Phillies (2008) - will be playing a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. Guess how many games will be telvised on one of those networks.

None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Bubkus.

That's right. None of them. So, what games will be on national television that weekend? Let's check the schedules, kids.

• FOX June 13 - New York Mets at New York Yankees or St. Louis Cardinals at Cleveland Indians, 4 PM ET.
• MLB Network June 13 - San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Orange County California USA Western Hemisphere Third Rock From the Sun Milky Way Galaxy Crab Nebula, 9 PM ET.
• TBS June 14 - New York Mets at New York Yankees, 1 PM ET (Headline News in New York City area).
• ESPN June 14 - St. Louis Cardinals at Cleveland Indians, 8 PM ET.

I can possibly understand the Mets-Yankees thing, but the last place Cleveland Fucking Indians and the last place San Diego Motherfucking Padres? Can someone have these prickheads take a damn cocksucking drug test to see what they were eating/drinking/smoking when they made these decisions? The die was cast a week earlier when ESPN decided to put the Phillies-Dodgers NLCS rematch for that week's Sunday Night Baseball telecast on June 7th. As far as I'm concrened, the Cardinals-Indians game was better off on KSDK in St. Louis and WKYC in Cleveland, thus in turn, pissing off those at NBC.

Sadly, the greedy motherfucking bastards at Major League Baseball will make these games available because as Ted DiBiase the elder says "Everybody's got a price...Everybody's gonna pay...'Cause [MLB]...Always gets [their] way." Those games (except in New England and the Valley of the Delaware) are readily available via their Extra Innings digital cable/DirecTV package or via the internet on MLB.tv. The sadder part? DirecTV doesn't carry Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia thanks to an obscurely antiquated FCC rule about exclusivtivity and Comcast's preferrence to use microwave/fiber optics.

So I give a great big loud FUCK YOU to TimeWarner, NewsCorpse and Disney as well as MLB's in house TV operations for this gigantic pile of bullshit. You made your beds, now the fans outside New England and Philadelphia expect you to lay there, you cocksucking assholes.

So How Smart Was Pirate Rupert To Air Lie To Me Instead Of The Obama Presser?

(Guest posted by JFein from Fire Andy Reid Now!)

The answer: As it turns out, Pirate Rupert may not have been as dumb as we thought, or at least I thought he was. While the Obama Presser combined had 22.02 million viewers combined from CBS, ABC, NBC, and Univision. However, no one network's airing of the presser had more viewers than Lie To Me: With 7.88 million viewers according to the overnight numbers on TVbythenumbers.com, while the network that had the most viewers for the Obama Presser, NBC, had 6.68 million viewers.

However, as far as Lie To Me numbers go, it was the season's lowest numbers of the season. The previous series low was 8.56 million viewers, and that was the number they pulled last week. But the trend has been to lose a few viewers each week with Lie To Me, especially seeing as it is a new show and it's pilot 12.37 million which went head-to-head with Lost and won. So when you're numbers are that high, you are bound to lose viewers over time (just look at Survivior). And this was also not the biggest amount of viewers lost from one week to the next for Lie To Me, so all in all, while it did not gain them viewers, I would file this one in the category of the late Chick Hern's "No harm, no foul, no blood, no ambulance".

Lie To Me Ratings Week By Week (Wikipedia)