The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it’s a blatant fiction that everyone knows about.

— Linda Holmes

I’m always a little confused by this stuff. Are we supposed to believe that Barack, Michelle, and Anita Dunn are secretly Maoists, but they keep forgetting to actually seize power in a violent coup and instead got confused and put internationally famous neoliberal economist Larry Summers in charge of economic policy?

— Matthew Yglesias

Don’t slip a concrete dildo into someone’s box of Fruit Loops. They won’t be happy with your Morning Breakfast Surprise. Put the concrete dildo in a clearly labeled box, with instructions. Then when someone encounters a problem, “Hey, something is screwing me here. Maybe it’s the concrete dildo?” at least they know to ask.

— The Higgs Bozo

Surprisingly, there was no press release with a rationalization for the name or any explanations of how the logo represents cutting edge technology and XFINITY’s commitment to its customers. Or whatever. The new name feels at the same time pompous and clichéd — as if there is no brighter horizon than the infinity of XFINITY but, really, nothing is as depressing as a badly placed “X,” a gesture better reserved for extreme games and products, for bad dot-com era start-ups and for strip-club dancers not named Destiny. It might sound more fun than “Comcast” but at least Comcast sounds like a real company with almost fifty years of experience.

— Brand New

I was saying around the office that I think what was missing from the Lieberman public option sellout deal was a healthy dose of liberal catharsis. Like if Lieberman got the leadership to agree to drop the public option, but in exchange Bernie Sanders gets to slap Lieberman five times in the face as hard as he can.

— Matthew Yglesias

It’s a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.

— Spencer Weart

Randy Newman’s Jewish awakening came rather abruptly. While in high school, he was invited to a country-club cotillion. When the night of the ball arrived, he received a surprise phone call from the girl’s father. “I’m sorry, Randy,” the father said, “my daughter had no right to invite you, because no Jews are allowed.” Newman answered, “That’s all right, sir,” hung up the phone, and asked his father, “Hey, Dad, what’s a Jew?”

— Paul Zollo

I’ve never really seen anything like [Drew Brees]. He’s maybe barely 6 feet tall and he moves around there like he’s seeing everything. I can’t see a thing half the time, and I’m the same height. He’s super special.

— teammate Heath Evans

I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate.

— Dock Ellis