2/10

1. The Boeing 747, the world’s first jumbo jet, is 40 years old today. It was so big that it had an upstairs cocktail bar right next to the cockpit, because in the sixties it was okay for pilots to be completely drunk. You have to be careful with a cocktail bar next to the cockpit, because you might get a cockfight. And other jokes that we can’t say on network television. The cocktail bar was up a spiral staircase, known as Internal Upstairs Diversions or “IUD”. And I won’t even get into the wider tail fins.

2. A new study says that most non-prescription medicine for arthritis doesn’t work. Like antler velvet powder, vitamin C, and especially Arthrimax’s “Giant Steel Hammer” (show fake ad) / Ginsu‘s “Arthri-choppers” (show fake ad with someone cutting off their fingers). Although their slogan is technically true: “You won’t be thinking about your arthritis anymore!”

3. Israel had a big national election yesterday. Voting was tight between the two main parties: the “We Need to Bomb Gaza Even More Than Now” Party and its rival, the “We Need to Wipe Gaza From the Face of the Planet” Party. Try and guess which is the liberal one.

4. The government is now giving away $1.5 trillion for banks. Plus the $350 billion we’ve already given to them and automakers. Plus the $838 billion stimulus package. Plus the right to name our grandchildren after episodes in Chinese history. “Yes, we’re very proud of little Mao Tse-Tung! And did you hear who made the football team? The Smiths’ kid - Western Pigs Must Die!” You know, the program to bail out Wall Street is called TARP, and if you spell that backwards, you get PRAT. Which is what Wall Street seems to be playing us for.

5. When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner began describing the stimulus, the stock market started falling almost as soon as he opened his mouth. Before he even really described it. So maybe it’s actually just his voice. Maybe Obama should give these speeches.