Political Irony

“During his weekly address to the nation, President Obama discussed higher education and said, ‘The most important skill you can sell is your knowledge.’ Or as English majors working at Starbucks put it, ‘No it’s not’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“This weekend President Obama attended the annual Gridiron Club Dinner, and during his speech he joked that he is getting older and crankier. Which explains why he announced he no longer supports President Obama.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Russia’s Vladimir Putin appeared in public for the first time after a mysterious 10-day absence. Putin said it took him that long to recover from the finale of ‘The Bachelor’.” – Conan O’Brien

After a mysterious absence, Vladimir Putin appeared today in public for the first time in nearly two weeks. You know what that means — a boob job. And we’re going to find out quick because that guy doesn’t wear a shirt a lot.” – Seth Meyers

“Some people are still angry about the letter written by Republicans to Iran. It’s also not helping that they said, ‘Dear Iran or Iraq, we can never keep you two straight.” – Conan O’Brien

“Pope Francis said that one of the things he misses most about ordinary life is the ability to go out and eat pizza without being recognized. I wouldn’t worry. Nobody’s going to believe the guy who works at the pizza place when he says, ‘Hey, you know who came in today? The Pope.'” – Seth Meyers

“Scientists have discovered a black hole that is 12 billion times the size of our sun. It’s full of Hillary Clinton emails.” – David Letterman

“Some Secret Service guys crashed a car into the White House. And they had been drinking when it happened. Actually, they hit a barrier trying to get to the White House. It’s the same thing that is happening to Hillary.” – David Letterman

“There is controversy surrounding Obama’s appearance on the show. Monday we announced the president would be here. This morning I got a letter from 47 Republicans telling me not to sign any deals with him.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Today Mitt Romney is 68 years old. It’s kind of sad, a 68-year-old guy with no job, no future — wait a minute, that’s me.” – David Letterman

“I always liked Mitt Romney. He looks like the salesman who follows you around at Brooks Brothers.” – David Letterman

“They found a scrapbook with photos of Osama bin Laden from the ’90s, and they’re studying each and every photo very, very closely. My favorite shot of Osama bin Laden was right between the eyes. ” – David Letterman

“President Obama’s trying to work out a nuclear deal with Iran, and the Republicans are steamed. They got together and sent Iran a letter about the nuclear deal. They said if this doesn’t work, by God, they’re going to send Seth Rogen and James Franco.” – David Letterman

“Clearly the situational ethics of this country’s leadership is easy to catalog, but the real takeaway from this seems to be no matter how evil our president or our Congress believes Iran to be, they would each rather deal with the ayatollah than each other.” – Jon Stewart (on 47 Republican Senators sending a letter to Iran about a nuclear deal)

“The ayatollah in Iran says he believes that he got the letter, but he thinks he accidentally threw it out with his Crate & Barrel catalog.” – David Letterman”

“Today would have been the birthday of Osama bin Laden. It makes me remember when Seal Team 6 threw him a surprise party.” – David Letterman

“This is a very big week for us here. Tomorrow night on our show we get a visit from President Obama, which means that all of you here tonight just missed having to get a cavity search to get in here tonight.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Manny is with us now. Hey, if you come back tomorrow we won’t need the Secret Service to protect President Obama. You can do it with your fists alone.” – Jimmy Kimmel

There’s some kind of a thing where when [Clinton] was Secretary of State she was using her own e-mail instead of the State Department, and I thought finally, a Clinton scandal the entire family can enjoy.” – David Letterman

“So the Florida Department of Environmental Protection can’t use the term ‘climate change’?” That’s like telling Rudy Giuliani he can’t use the word ‘9-11.’ ” – Larry Wilmore on “The Nightly Show”

“Mayor de Blasio has legalized ferrets. Now you can legally own ferrets in New York City. I want to tell you something. If I want to see any more beady-eyed little weasels, I’ll just keep riding the subway.” – David Letterman

“Now in Utah if you get the death sentence, they have the firing squad. In Russia, they call that early retirement.” – David Letterman

“Because Utah is largely Mormon country, the firing squad’s a little different. You’re blindfolded but no cigarette.” – David Letterman

Tomorrow is an extra special, up-to-the-second Pi Day. How special? Once a century special!

What is Pi Day? It is a day celebrating mathematics held on March 14 every year. In the US at least, we write this date as 3/14, corresponding to the first three digits of Pi (3.14).

But once a century we get an extra special treat. Tomorrow’s date is 3/14/15, which corresponds to the first 5 digits of Pi (whoo hoo!).

And if you are a real nerd like me, you also get to celebrate “Pi Second” at 9:26:53. That is a mind-blowing 10 digits of Pi!!! 3.141592653 And we get to do it twice, once in the AM and once in the PM.

If that weren’t enough, tomorrow is also the birthday of Albert Einstein, one of the most famous and brilliant mathematicians of all time. What an amazing coincidence!

How do you celebrate Pi Day? By eating pie (including pizza), marching around circular spaces (and meditating on the fact that walking around a circle takes 3.141592653… times as long as walking across it), memorizing digits of Pi, and marveling at the wonders of mathematics (like infinities) and all the benefits mathematics has brought to us. For example, Alan Turing was a mathematician, and he was largely responsible for inventing the computer.

Back in the 17th century, Ludolph van Ceulen spent his entire life calculating digits of Pi, and only managed to get 35 decimals. Nowadays, using our mathematics-based computers, we have calculated Pi to over 10 trillion decimal places.

That’s a lot of Pi!

UPDATE: MIT takes Pi Day very seriously! This is how they send out their acceptance letters for admission, and they do it on Pi Day.

Andy Borowitz has two hilarious satirical articles about the continued GOP attempts to sabotage Obama’s negotiations with Iran:

“Kim Jong-Un Feels Snubbed By Absence of Letter from Republicans” has the North Korean dictator complaining that it was hurtful for Republicans to send a letter to Iran and ignore his country. After all, North Korea already has something that Obama is negotiating to prevent Iran from acquiring. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like, when you actually get nuclear weapons, people start taking you for granted.”

“Iran Offers to Mediate Talks Between Republicans and Obama” has Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei offering to help reduce tensions between these “two historic enemies”. His offer is predicated on the fact that “it has become clear that both sides currently talk more to Iran than to each other.” Unfortunately, the bitter enemies don’t seem interested. Obama questioned whether “any deal reached with Republicans is worth the paper it’s written on. For their part, the Republicans said they would only agree to talks if there were no preconditions, such as recognizing President Obama’s existence.”

And let’s give the last word to Jon Stewart, who makes fun of both sides: