Did you ever wonder what happens when politics and musical theater have a baby? No, not . This.

I was listening to the podcast from Rachel Maddow’s Friday-night show on my walk home, as I am wont to do, and the first segment had me laughing out loud and gasping in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

The chutzpah it takes to do that amazes me. Well done, Billionaires for Wealthcare.

Madeleine Albright was Bill Maher’s first guest on Real Time Friday night (I’m watching it right now to try and get my blood pressure down after the Battlestar finale. And so I can stop crying) and as usual, she was incredible. This lady, she is an ass-kicker and a hero and a living legend. My favorite part of this segment is when Bill Maher asks her to describe various world leaders in one word (it’s near the end).

TiFaux boyfriend Joel McHale was on Keith Olbermann’s show Tuesday night to weigh in on the Meghan McCain–Laura Ingraham–Ann Coulter brouhaha that’s been stultifying the country for a few days. Please to enjoy as Joel compares the conservative ladies involved to several models of Cylon.

My turn! I’m inadvertently piggybacking off Marisa’s bonus item, because these are the top 5 moments of 2008 that made me scream at my TV. Most of this is happy screaming; the vice-presidential debate would have landed around #6 just for the number of times my roommate hissed at me to stop leaping off the couch and shrieking at the box in the corner.

5. Justin Timberlake recaps a future, fictional SNL.

You know, there are a few things I love (actually, there are a lot of things I love: cheese, tiny blonde detectives, Olympic swimmers, my pajamas, Friday Night Lights, dark chocolate, romance novels, red wine…) and two of them are Justin Timberlake and Weekend Update. Oh, and Seth Meyers. And The Barry Gibb Talk Show. Okay, let’s just say I love a lot, a lot of things.

4. The Kevin Garnett puppet at the ESPYs.

Hey, it’s Justin Timberlake again! He hosted ESPN’s fake awards show this year. And he did a giant musical number that recapped the year in sports, including a reggae number featuring the Celtics’ big three, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett. My favorite moment is when Garnett, in the audience, makes the exact same face as the puppet. (Garnett is the puppet on Timberlake’s left.) This is the only time in recent memory when I could stomach listening to reggae.

3. Galactica gets to Earth.

There are a lot of my-mind-is-blown moments across the four seasons of Battlestar Galactica, starting with “Holy shit, Boomer is a Cylon!” all the way up through “Holy shit, soylent earth is people!” last June with a little detour on the way for “Holy shit, Apollo married Dualla!” and “Holy shit, Admiral Cain is batshit crazy!” Personally, I often find it to be a slack-jawed in awe and/or horror kind of show, like when one of the Cylons ripped out Tigh’s eye and when the latter four Cylons all got together to the tune of “All Along the Watchtower,” but this final, silent, grim vision of the future, following so closely on the heels of the scenes of wild, joyful celebration all over the ship when they find Earth (it kind of looked like #1, below), caused me to make some sort of stunned, keening noise I can only describe as agony.

2. Jason Lezak wins the Olympic men’s 4×100 free relay.

Even though we were watching it a couple of hours later, Roommate and I were on our feet, hollering like they could hear us on the other side of the world. The monster? Out of the cage!

1. Obama wins. WE ALL WIN.

Crying. Screaming. Weeping. Hugging everyone. Gesturing madly with cups of champagne. Crying and screaming some more. I only remember very vividly where I was, what I was doing, what I was wearing, a few moments of my life. Even having had quite a quantity of wine that night, I hope I’ll remember this one as long as I live.

This was the last segment of Keith Olbermann’s show last night. Two of my favorite people, plus that baby and his adorable, fat little face? This is great live TV, y’all.

It really appears as though our long national nightmare might be over. That is, the lamentable 2007-2008 television season is behind us and the 2008-2009 season is upon us.

One sign of this is the announcement of some bizarre-o casting news for a few shows — mostly ones I am not really interested in. However, the news is just odd enough to perk up my ears.

First up, Laurence Fishburn (seen here in more humbling days) is joining the cast of CSI. I suppose he hasn’t been doing anything incredibly earth-shaking over the past few years, but it still seems like he’s slumming it a little. Admittedly, CSI is an inexplicably enormous hit (the American populace loves figuring out how psychopaths murder and disfigure unwitting victims), but if Larry wanted to take some time off I figured he’d be the type to get a role on or off Broadway. That way, he keeps his actor street cred.

That said, he’s probably making a shit ton of money. So, Godspeed Laurence. Godspeed.

In other news, there’s Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall. He’ll be guest starring on an episode of Brothers and Sisters (or, as I like to call it, Gays and Old Ladies) as the love interest of an unnamed character. He’s dressed up like a woman enough on Kids in the Hall and played gay enough (KITH and Will & Grace) that it’s anyone’s guess who is going to be love interest-ing him.

Plus, you didn’t hear it from me, but he’s looking kind of old these days.  No more boyishness.  So, who knows?

Finally, Colin Hanks is .  And Sigourney Weaver is going to be Eli Stone’s therapist.

Get excited, everyone!

Sometimes 24-hour cable news chatter can get to the supreme level of awkward that it actually reverts back to charming. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes when the decorum fades and the talking heads start acting like people it can become likable. (Note: This can never happen on FOX News. It’s just a fact.)

Case in point — a strange exchange between our beloved Anderson Cooper and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile where they discuss Hillary Clinton’s possibilities as a vice presidential candidate. Take a look:

This is a rather oddball exchange, especially if you believe what you hear about these two characters around the blogosphere.

One other aspect of this episode is CNN.com’s new and completely ridiculous feature where you can purchase t-shirts based on headlines. They used to have almost any random-ass headline for sale (plus, you could easily hack into the code and create your own shirt — a feature they’ve since caught on to), but now they’re only doing the silly human interest ones like “Lhasa apso moonlights as lounge singer” or “Six-year-old youngest superdelegate ever.” CNN apparently caught on to how precious this exchange was and made it a full-fledged story on their homepage. Here’s the corresponding shirt.

I recently came across a news item for The Bad Mother’s Handbook — a new ABC pilot. It has a really strong cast, but it’s weird, because they’re supposed to be three generations of women that a weirdly close together.

As is the case when I can’t really figure out what to say about something, let’s turn this into a game. I’ll list three actresses, you have to guess which one is actually the one who is cast.

Eldest generation: Megan Mullally, Maura Tierney, Gillian Anderson

Middle generation: Alicia Silverstone, Heather Graham, Sarah Michelle Gellar

Youngest generation: Mischa Barton, Alexis Bledel, Alia Shawkat

The answers are after the jump….

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