'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps

ShowPlug1: Our newest GOP Voodoo Candidate. Rick Perry denies climate change, boasts he's a job creator when new metric shows Texas is LAST

ShowPlug2: @NiaWaPo Nia-Malika Henderson on Perry, @Markos Moulitsas on report Chris Christie using Pres. campaign focus groups

ShowPlug3: POTUS and jobs. Called out by Rep. Waters - what CAN a president do to create them on his own? w/ Bob Kuttner of @TheProspect

ShowPlug4: On, Wisconsin? With mixed Recall results, what's next for recalling Gov. Walker? w/St Sen, "Wis 14" member. @ChrisJLarson

ShowPlug5: Billionaire wants to build his own business-friendly country on oil rig platforms in the Pacific.Guess he never saw "WaterWorld"

ShowPlugLast: Janeane Garofalo on West's one-word letter confirming what he is: "Nuts." And her daring theory on the Herman Cain candidacy


Segments:
watch whole playlist

#5 'Running on Empty', Nia-Malika Henderson
YouTube

#5 'Room For More', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)

#4 'Jobs Approval', Bob Kuttner
YouTube

Time Marches On!
YouTube

#3 'Recall Redux?', Chris Larson (D-WI)
YouTube

#2 Worst Persons: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Peter Thiel
Current.com, YouTube

#1 'Nuts and Dolts', Janeane Garofalo
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)


#2 Worst Persons:

The bronze to Michele Bachmann.

Another week, another factual disaster.

I'm beginning to believe the over-medicated theory.

Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.

Faithful viewers will recall, that means it was also the 34th anniversary of the day I did the last known radio commercial for an Elvis Presley live concert, and I didn't get paid for it, because he died.

But you don't have to know that to appreciate this.

You only have to know: yesterday was the 34th anniversary of Elvis Presley's. Well death-day.

Apparently somebody in the crowd shouted back "he died today."

Bachmann either didn't hear him, or didn't believe the voice was coming from outside her head.

Our runner-up: Colorado congressman Doug Lamborn. You remember him: Tar-Baby Lamborn.

He's the guy who said dealing with President Obama during the debt debate was "like touching a tar baby."

Lamborn tepidly apologized -- insufficiently to stem a wave of protests at his office. He's now figured out a way around that.

There's a new sign outside his office reading "Private Property -- No Soliciting, No Protesting, No Loitering."

So now there's two things Congressman Lamborn doesn't understand: He has no idea you shouldn't describe an African-American president by using a derogatory term for black people, and he doesn't realize that the office of a U.S. Congressman is not in fact, private property!

But our winner: Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, now billionaire.

The classic example of the idiot who has one good idea in his life, makes a lot of money, and then screws everything else up.

Nevertheless: Mr. Thiel has donated a million, 250 thousand dollars to a project to build an independent off-shore nation, in the form of a couple of oil rigs or something, in the international waters beyond San Francisco.

They call it Sea-Steading, and they think it can lead to an ideal libertarian utopia, in which they can live up to the principles of Ayn Rand.

Atlas Shrugged Island, if you will, would be, per "Details" Magazine.

"a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

They'd eliminate waves, somehow, and live out there on the platforms. Somehow.

Making money. Somehow.

And you could go and live there, forever, and your business wouldn't be regulated. Somehow.

In a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dvelling space could be easily provided. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered.

Of course it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition.

Naturally, they would breed prodigiously. There would be much time, and little to do. But with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

More seriously, Mr. Thiel: I got four points. The first three are points in the form of a question.

One: You ever see that Costner flick "Water-World"?

Two: Tsunamis?

Three: Pirates?

And four: Ayn Rand was a hypocrite who wound up taking social security and medicare. She was a lousy writer. And Atlas Shrugged is a lousy book.

Peter "Oceans Eleven" Thiel.

Today's Worst Person In The World.