I heard a very unfortunate reggae version of the very unfortunate hit Roxanne by The Police while at dinner tonight, which reminded me of a Casey Kasem fact that I forgot to include in my initial post.

Occasionally during the run of AT40 one of the songs on the charts would include some objectionable content. When these occasions would arise (as with Roxanne, for instance) the AT40 producers would cut the show together in a way that the affiliates could opt out of playing the objectionable song.

In one nearly famous case, when George Michael’s I want your sex was clawing from the floor of the men’s restroom to the top of the charts, Kasem refused to announce the name of the song, opting instead to just introduce the song as being by Michael.

He seems to have dropped that objection in later years, however, as he had no issue announcing that Birthday Sex by the multifaceted and talented Jeremih was #1 on the urban charts this week.

I heard Casey Kasem on American Top 20 this morning. Yes, it was current. No, I don’t know if he’s really alive or if they just strung together his voice with old clips.

Kasem still hosts 2 spin-offs of his original American Top 40 show, American Top 20 and American Top 10. The original show is now hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

(Because someone decided that shorter is cooler, the shows are now called AT40, AT20 and AT10.)

Casey Kasem co-created the original AT40 in 1970, and hosted from 1970 to 1988. Then he left over a contract dispute and the show was taken over by Shadoe Stevens. Kasem took his show to a competing radio network, and changed the name to Casey’s Top 40. The two shows ran side by side for a few years, but then Kasem returned to the original show in 1998. Ryan Seacrest took over in 2004.

In the early 90’s AT20 and AT10 were created to focus on Adult Contemporary music, whatever the hell that means. Both shows are similar to the original AT40 in format, just shorter, and with different songs on the charts.

Whatever radio station I was listening to was playing the AT20 version, starring Kasem.

As for those of you wondering what happened to Shadoe Stevens, he’s currently the announcer for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and recently co-founded Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Radio, a rock radio station broadcasting from Mexico. His daughter is on the ABC Family channel’s show Greek.

Source: This fan site, wiki and wiki.

So important that we need to suspend the first amendment in order to silence criticism.

From an Obama Staffer (Special Counsel to the President!):

“First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

Um, “the special circumstances” require restricting oral communications to all persons?

Now is this the change we’ve been waiting for? It’s hard to keep up.

Via Hot Air

The spoils system has been around as long as government. You scratch my back, and I’ll give you a posh government post.

It even played a part in the assassination of President James Garfield, when a delusional man sought revenge on the president when he refused to grant the man an ambassadorship in exchange for help getting him elected.

So this story would hardly even be worth mentioning, save for the soaring hopey changey “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” rhetoric of President Feckless…

Even with his pledges to change government, Obama is following the tradition of his predecessors by offering some ambassadorships to top campaign backers, including four of the 12 nominations this week. The president acknowledged in a news conference in January that donors might get plum postings.

“The practice of rewarding donors is a remnant of the spoils system that we abolished in the civil service,” said career diplomat Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former ambassador to Afghanistan. “It is a dismal testimony to the importance of money in our electoral system.”

The whole thing makes me feel sorry for Rod Blagojevich. Selling a Senate seat is illegal, but selling an ambassadorship is just business as usual? How’s a good civil servant supposed to keep up with the rules? It’s all so confusing.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA, is a combat support agency within the Department of Defense.

They provide satellite based intelligence solutions for other parts of the government to use.

You can read all about them here.

Feel comforted in the fact that you are only a few hours behind the President of the United States (and former US Senator) in learning that this agency exists.

The Smartest President Ever learned about the agency by a chance encounter with one of its employees at lunch today.

Obama: What do you do Walter?
Walter: I work at, uh, NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Obama: Outstanding, how long you been doing that?
Walter: About six years
Obama: Yea?
Walter: Yes.
Obama: You like it?
Walter: I do, keeps me…
Obama: So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial…uh…
Walter: Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery..
Obama: Right
Walter: [unintelligible] …support systems, so…
Obama: Sounds like good work.
Walter: Enjoy the weekend.
Obama: Appreciate it.

There’s 2 options here: either the government is too sprawling for one man, let alone the man in charge of the government to keep track of it, or the President should know but doesn’t.

When do we get to start describing President Feckless as “intellectually incurious”? Imagine if this exchange had been between Walter and President Bush?

Update: Video Added

Via Hot Air.

Adding to our ever-expanding list of things you can’t call 911 for… missing orange juice.

Raibin Osman called 911 after not getting the carton of orange juice he ordered
from an Aloha, Ore., McDonald’s.

Apparently, they ordered, went home, “little brother is crying for his orange juice and stuff,” they drove back with the receipt, and they wouldn’t give him his orange juice. Osman says, “She was laughing at my brother-in-law because he ordered the food and he couldn’t speak English right and she’s not even showing up in the window now.”

The McDonalds manager also called 911, but was no more elegant with their call. “They got mad because they told me to give them more food… And I told them I can’t give any free food away. And they started telling me bad words and all that.”

Though I do have to laugh at the name of the article…, “Missing Juice Causes McRage.”

Is an INCREDIBLY short read. I read it at lunch yesterday, dinner, and lunch today, and I’m done. It is even a shorter book if you don’t read the Albus Dumbledore commentary, and even SHORTER if you don’t read the footnotes!

For those of you who don’t know, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” is a J. K. Rolwing book that is basically a collection of 5 classic wizard fairytales from the Harry Potter universe. The book also contains commentary on each story “written” by Dumbledore.

The short stories were pretty good, and the commentary was a little dry, but still interesting.

Overall, maybe a little overpriced, but otherwise, not bad.

That Betty Crocker doesn’t know S***

Jeff and I decided on a lark that we wanted to make sangria the other night. We went to our trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook, and found the following recipe:

2/3 cup Lemon Juice
1/3 cup Orange Juice
1/4 cup Sugar
One bottle dry red wine

We actually had two bottles of wine, one a Merlot, the other a Cabernet. Both turned out to be sour and disgusting. DO NOT try this at home.

Russia is implementing what they are calling “an appropriate package of precautionary measures” in response to the latest from North Korea.

“We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula,” he added. The official did not elaborate further.

Gulp.

The term godspeed, used in such popular culture situations as The Simpson’s, “Godspeed, little doodle,” or Spider-man, “Godspeed, Spider-man,” has nothing to do with wishing for god-like-speed.

According to my best friend,

The Term “God Speed” originated in the Old Testament part of the Bible, in the
book of Genesis 24:12 in the King James Version, when Abraham’s servant,
Eliezer, prayed for success when he was sent to find a wife for Abraham’s son
Isaac. The original Hebrew word for “speed” in this verse is הַקְרֵה, pronounced
“Haq-rei” and it means “to encounter” or “to meet” in the causative form: “And
he said O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this
day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.” (Genesis 24:12 KJV).

Furthermore, it means:

1) An expression of good will when addressing someone, typically someone about
to go on a journey or a daring endeavor.
2) A Christian substitute to the otherwise sacrilegious “good luck”, which implies that anything can be random and out of the hands of God. Used to express concern and prayer for someone.

I think this is all very misleading…