C Street Band
Rachel started us off with the continuing guilt, shame, and mad dollahs soap opera that is C Street. Amazingly enough, it’s starting to skeeve people out a little bit.

This clip is kind of a grab bag of delicious treats, including Governor Mark Sandford (R – South Carolina) in a press conference so uncomfortable that most ordinary men would have to chew off a foot to survive it.

Fortunately, Sanford has had some training in surviving monstrously uncomfortable press conferences. Though he still insists on having distracting people in the background. Is that supposed to be a misdirection technique or something?

The wonderful Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post dropped in to chat. He and Rachel always seem to have such fun together.

I don’t often disagree with Eugene Robinson, but I do when he says the main problem with The Family is the secrecy. Me, I’m going with the totalitarianism.

I also think it’s interesting that Zach Wamp (R – Tennessee) thinks that C Street won’t be a problem because it’s a Christian group. Do you think he’d feel the same if it were a group of politicians from any other religion meeting in secret, giving props to Hitler’s management style, and talking about keeping their birth rate high?

Northern Exposure
Oh, Sarah Palin. Don’t ever change.

Rachel reported that an investigator for the Alaska State Personnel Board found that Palin has violated Alaskan ethics laws with her – wait for it – legal defense fund to help fight accusations of ethics violations.

Such funds are apparently common for politicians on the federal level, but are illegal in the Great State of Alaska. Which nobody on the Governor’s team thought to check, I guess.

I can’t help it: A part of me finds that adorable.

By the way, if you are not following Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed, you are missing gold. Start now, I tell you! Now!

Ms. Information
Rachel updated us on a new round of protests in Iran, including an intriguing power surge protest: Tuesday night protesters were all supposed to turn off their appliances and then turn them back on at the same time.

She also noted that President Ahmadinejad is maybe not enjoying his Presidency as much as he thought he would. Apparently Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is pressuring him to drop his choice for Vice President. Sounds like someone just learned a Very Special Lesson about election fraud.

Rachel also gave us an update on the giant, oozing mystery blob off the coast of Alaska: Scientists have schlorped out a couple of buckets of the stuff and determined that it’s algae.

And now it’s angry.

Rachel finished off this segment with a pun that made me laugh out loud before I ran out to help rescue the many thousands who were nearly killed by it.

Jet Blew
Rachel reported that the Senate gave the military-industrial complex an inferiority complex by cutting nearly $2 billion in funding for more F-22 jets.

Turns out that is a huge, very interesting deal.

If you want to see something besides F-22s flying through the air, glance down at your socks as you watch this truly fantastic example of information synthesis. Those suckers are going to get knocked clean off.

Congressman Barney Frank (D – Massachusetts), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, dropped in to maintain his firm grip on the lead in the My Favorite Curmudgeon race.

(Also, if you are eight years old inside, you will enjoy getting to hear Rachel repeatedly say the word “frigate,” which is my favorite homophone.)

Moment of Geek
Rachel kept us all looking up with a report on Tuesday’s solar eclipse, the longest of this century.

I had the sound off for the bulk of it, but from the looks of things a particularly large dragon tried to eat the sun and came very close to succeeding!

I’m glad to see that people finally managed to drive it away, presumably with the traditional method of banging on pots and pans.

Neat!

Birther of a Nation
Amazingly enough, the birthers have not yet been distracted by, I don’t know, the issue of whether earthquakes are caused by Communist molemen or something, and they are actually getting airtime.

They are also scaring the dickens out of the tiny remaining non-whackadoodle branch of the Republican Party, based on the vigorous weaseling Representative John Campbell (R – California) did on MSNBC’s Hardball.

You’ll also get to see CNN’s Lou “Foreigners Are Scary” Dobbs, but not so much that you’ll need the ipecac.

Just Enough
Kent let us know that Carrie Prejean’s memoir, Still Standing, will be published this November.

It’s good to know that your holiday gift list is all taken of, isn’t it?