Pun Salad

… the water will change to cherry wine:

• People still upset about President Obama's threat against the Jonas Brothers:

  Jonas Brothers are here, they're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don't get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming. You think I'm joking?

  Rachel Winer quotes a couple people who didn't like it. Sample:

  "Let's be honest, fellow progressives, we'd be all over Bush if he made the same 'predator drone' joke Obama told last night," Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch tweeted.

  Good point. But nobody seems to entertain the possibility that he wasn't joking. Like he said he wasn't.

• Perhaps everyone could use a tour of the Microsoft™ Humor Competency page.

• The Mayor of New York City combined wishful thinking and selective blindness while chatting with Katie Couric on the "CBS Evening News" last night, meditating on the identity of the culprit behind the Times Square car bomb:

  Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.

  Off camera, I imagine they joked about how stupid Sarah Palin was.

  Other people displaying their biases via uninformed guessing: DHS Secretary Napolitano and NY Senator Charles Schumer.

  Roger Simon has further comments on Mayor Bloomberg, Geraldo, and similar deep thinkers. Jonah is also good.

• At GraniteGrok, sharp-eared Steve notes a new bit of Barackrobatics: "From Day One". As in: we've been on this whole oil spill thingy from day one. (The GOP gleefully counted sixteen uses of this catch phrase over the weekend.)

  Day one began with the same meeting they have every time something happens; how can we blame Bush or Republicans, and if not them who? No "national" response is possible until that narrative has been worked out, and a plan is in place to turn whatever it is into some political advantage, unless it fits an existing grievance narrative already in place like "racist!" The Narrative seeps out, the media and the administration regurgitate it, add spin and stir.

  The late great William Safire analyzed how "Day One" was being used on the campaign trail back in 2008. (Also see his musings on "post-partisan". Those were simpler days.)

Well, there it is, order placed November 18, 1995, shipped on the 29th: The Great Book of French Impressionism. (Amazon's online store had opened in July 1995.)

Why? Pun Son and Daughter were in the "Odyssey of the Mind" program at St. Mary's Academy in Dover NH; their team's project for the year was "Great Impressions":

For this problem the team will select a drawing or painting by a French Impressionist artist and write a poem relating to it. The team will also select a poem by a famous author, create an original drawing or painting that relates to the poem, and present the poem and work of art.

Even though I was just along for the ride, I roughly centupled my previous knowledge of Impressionism, easy to do when "previous knowledge" was "something about water lilies".

I'm still a little weak on the difference between Monet and Manet, and tend to prefer Mamet.