Sarah Palin's Top Ten TV Shows To Replace David Letterman

#10. ALASKAN AERIAL WOLF HUNTING, #9. WHAT NOT TO WEAR: GOP EDITION #8. THE LATE SHOW WITH LARRY CRAIG #7. ACCORDING TO NEWT #6. AMERICA'S GOP LACKS REAL TALENT #5. CALIFORNIA TERMINATOR: THE GOVERNOR SCHWARTZENEGGER CHRONCILES #4. MY NAME IS JOHN ENSIGN #3. LIPSTICK PITBULL JUNGLE #2. TORTURE OR NO TORTURE #1. ARE YOU SMARTER THAN THE ALASKA GOVERNOR?

Bad Economy & Bad Reviews Close Pet Store Chain

In Oregon and Washington, all five Scamps pet shops which operate in shopping centers are closing under chapter 7 bankruptcy. For years, the stores had to fight against bad publicity by animal rights activists as well as some angry consumers. In 2008, KGW news in Portland ran a damning story claiming that Scamps knowingly sold sick pets to customers. Some dogs for example had parasites, worms and in one case, a dislocated kneecap, according to the KGW report. However, Scamps did offer a free veterinarian exam with each major pet purpose, with the right to return an animal within a specified time-frame.

Two former employees of Scamps have even posted claims on the Internet that they were ordered to place sick animals in a plastic bag and to kill them by putting them in a freezer by the owner of the stores. However, no independent claims exist to verify whether this is true or simply two disgruntled former employees or just some phony animal rights activist propaganda. Many other employees loved their job and the customers.

The fact of the matter is that this pet store chain struggled in the last several years with bad publicity as well as the bad economy, and it all became too much and strained the company to the breaking point.

However, I have some good things to say about Scamps. After both of my parents and my dog all died from unrelated old age health issues in late 2007, I felt lonely and purchased my little dog, Archie, a Havanese Bichon at Scamps for the reduced price of $275. He's not the brightest guy. And maybe he's even a "puppy mill" dog. But he's still a great little guy and companion and worth owning. Maybe Scamps wasn't the best pet business ever. But I'm a very satisfied customer myself. The staff always seemed very good. And the store had a great selection of quality pet food and supplies in stock. Scamps didn't seem like too bad of a business to me.

Yet, with a bad economy, buying a dog and having an extra mouth to feed in the family isn't at the top of most people's hit list right now. And the combination of too many critics, possible bad business practices and the bad economy all worked to sink what appeared to be a popular pet store business located in several shopping malls. Scamps probably was about as good of a business as could be expected for any business that sold live animals at shopping malls. Not perfect, but not entirely bad either.

Rock-Ola Built More Than Just Jukeboxes

As popular as the classic 1950's jukeboxes by Rock-Ola are, few know that this company once built motor scooters during the 1930's and 40's as well. This Chicago based company, whose classic jukeboxes sometimes sell for thousands of dollars also was a builder of some now very rare motor scooters sought out by collectors. Strangely, the 1 horsepower engine that powered some of the Rock-Ola motor scooters was called the "Iron Horse" engine by Rock-Ola. Okay.

One interesting Rock-Ola design was this three wheeled scooter which was designed to be used by business with a large front mounted trunk. Possibly some were converted into ice cream wagons by some dealers.

One Tiny Car

The tiny Peel automobiles from the UK might set the record as the smallest street legal automobiles ever built. The tiny 50cc cars could easily be picked by the average woman because of their extremely light weight. these cars only weighed just 132 pounds, far less than the average motor scooter which weigh in around 200 pounds or more. These tiny cars were built between 1962 and 1967 with only about 100 one seater and 100 larger two seater models ever built. The company that built these tiny cars also built go carts as well as boats, so this company was expert in building lightweight vehicles. The little one seaters could travel as fast as 38mph.

Sarah Palin Supporter With Arrest Record Draws Crowd Of Around 15 Persons To "Fire David Letterman" Rally

John Ziegler, an unabashed right wing radio broadcaster supporter of Sarah Palin, with an arrest record for attempting to disrupt an appearance by journalist Katie Couric to receive the Walter Cronkite Journalism Award at USC, is spearheading a new low budget protest effort for CBS to fire David Letterman because Letterman tells jokes about the Alaska governor and her family. On Monday, Ziegler claimed that he would have a huge crowd protest outside of the taping of the LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN in NYC, instead Ziegler had maybe as few as 15 supporters show up to protest the show.

The fact of the matter is that with only a relative handful of Sarah Palin supporters fueling some ongoing controversy with David Letterman, there is no real grassroots effort against David Letterman or support to fire him. Instead, CBS is only likely to renew Letterman's contract and even offer him a pay raise within the next few days.

Ziegler was pretty unhappy when a grossly overweight red-headed and bearded man held up a sign proclaiming, "I'm A Right Wing Lunatic", and kept shouting "Jesus is speaking to me!", "I hate it when people tell jokes on TV!" to mock Ziegler's latest political stunt to support Sarah Palin. The man was sent from a radio show to mock Ziegler's absurd efforts to muzzle comics.

The reality that seems to be lost on Sarah Palin and her small bands of supporters who are fueling this nonsense controversy is that other comics such as Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, Craig Ferguson have probably told far more jokes about the Alaska governor than David Letterman ever told. Further, there is no law preventing public figures or their families from becoming the butt of jokes. That simply goes with celebrity.

A further problem for Palin is that by keeping alive the tabloid story about her daughter's out of wedlock pregnancy, Palin only further erodes any real potential political support among most voters, leaving her only with a tiny fringe of extremists and kooks as supporters. Palin marginalizes herself as the candidate for some fringe personalities. That's hardly the path to the White House in 2012. Even Republican strategists have attempted to warn Palin and her supporters about the potential damage she's doing to her own political career, yet these concerns seem to only go unanswered.

The fact of the matter is that even some failed extreme conservatives like Barry Goldwater had a number of real issues to advocate and run on. Instead, Palin's kooky personality and goofy family problems only attract the comics to tell jokes, so Palin supporters think that by inspiring a chilling effect on the comics rather than clean up their trailer park family conduct is the proper path.

The fact of the matter as that Palin has made herself too much of a butt of jokes by her own hand. It's a little too late to blame the comics for what she has brought upon herself. There is zero chance such a person will ever be elected president. It takes more than a handful of voters to be elected.

MAD Magazine Hit By The Recession

The tough times in the print business have now hit the last remaining satire magazine published in the United States, MAD Magazine. Starting with issue #500, which is currently available at many newsstands, MAD will cut back from being a monthly magazine with 48 pages selling for $4.99 to becoming a quarterly publication with 56 pages selling for $5.99. Two other MAD publications, MAD FOR KIDS and MAD CLASSICS are being dropped, and some staffers at MAD are being laid off by the owner of MAD, AOL Time Warner.

Part of the problem with less of a presence of MAD at newsstands due to the shorter publication schedule may only encourage some distributors or newsstands to drop MAD altogether, putting MAD sales into a tailspin. The fact of the matter is that this cannot possiby be good news for this very influential satire magazine that has existed since the 1950's.

MAD has many competitors over the past decades including CRACKED, SICK, CRAZY, HARPOON(later known as APPLE PIE) and a few other minor publications. NATIONAL LAMPOON once made a serious attempt to appeal to an older audience of readers of satire magazines, and was really at it's peak during the 1970's as a great satire magazine. CRACKED fell into hard times with distribution problems and an attempt to revive the magazine sadly fell flat. CRACKED managed to continue a great 1950's style of cartooning until the short-lived new version came out. CRACKED was also a pretty good competitor for MAD all during the late 50's into the 70's.

Sadly for MAD is the news that FOX has cancelled the MAD TV show as well. In the past 14 seasons, MAD TV managed some very effective satires and parody bits. And some decent stars such as Nicole Sullivan have emerged from the show.

MAD Magazine is a great institution that deserves to live on. When I was just a kid around 1959 to 1963, my parents used to give me a 25cents allowance to spend as I see fit. I usually would opt for buying a MAD Magazine rather than buy two 10cent comic books and a 5cent candy bar. MAD Magazine taught me to read at 4 and five years old. I had no problem blowing my whole allowance wad on this great magazine that deserves to live on for future generations. Society needs more than just SATAURDAY NIGHT LIVE as a vehicle for parody and satire. MAD is too good to disappear, but it certainly appears to be living on life support right now. How long AOL Time Warner will continue to stand by a number of troubled publications like MAD is a good question. But the recession has hit many print publications pretty hard in recent times, leaving great newspapers and magazines hanging on for dear life.

David Letterman Wins Ratings War Again, Thanks Largely To Palin

Based on the ratings from last evening, David Letterman appears to be building a clear and steady ratings lead over Conan O'Brien as the Sarah Palin controversy along with some big name stars has helped Letterman cement his recent ratings gains. At the same time, Sarah Palin appears to be using the Letterman controversy to create some sort of values campaign issue. The reality is that both have emerged as gaining something from the controversy.

The truth is that comics tell many jokes, many of which may not always be in the best of taste. Sometimes cheap jokes get cheap laughs. And comedy cannot always be so concerned about hurt feelings. However, Palin's fight with Letterman doesn't appear as real genuine here, and certainly seems more contrived than anything. Palin also hoped to get some political mileage out of another David Letterman joke about her buying makeup at Bloomingdales to get that "slutty stewardess" look, but Palin failed to rally a mob of pitchfork carrying slutty stewardess types with this phony victim's rant as much as her phony victim's rant about the mild Alex Rodriguez joke garnered.

Palin's complaints about the Letterman joke appear to be more of the same old right wing culture smear politics that attempt to falsely blame popular culture for causing crimes such as rape just as much as those old 1930's smears by the old Ku Klux Klan against minorities, claiming that just the very presence of minorities contributes to rape. Whenever the far right wants to obfuscate an issue, they holler rape, much as some lunatic would holler fire in a crowded theatre hoping to create some havoc.

The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin is a pretty insignificant politician that only speaks for a small fringe of supporters. And it is unclear whether she will even run for re-election for Alaska governor in 2010. However, odds are that she is putting together a presidential bid to nowhere for 2012. But at least David Letterman is laughing. His ratings are way up. And he is cementing a position as the new king of late night TV once again, which he lost a few years ago to Jay Leno as Conan O'Brien struggles to build a new audience for his 11:35 version of the TONIGHT SHOW.