Stephen Colbert helps us Better Know a Beatle: Paul McCartney on The Colbert Report

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When I studied abroad in London a few years back, I had the chance to meet Paul McCartney at book signing at Waterstones. I’m not saying he’s my favorite Beatle because of that, but it’s certainly a reason. I always felt his music to be clean, simple, and epic. And while not taking those away from Lennon or Harrison, there just wasn’t the same appeal.

There’s really nothing funny about this post.  I’ll let Colbert and Paul handle that department.  Hopefully Electric Arguments will be better than his latest offerings.

Pay Day for “A” Grades: Struggling School Districts Offer Students Cash Incentives for Improved Marks

Ritalin, promises of a brighter future, the occasional extra credit horizontal mambo with your english teacher in the school parking lot: nothing seems to be motiving kid’s to do better in school. While some critics have urged to increase teacher’s salaries to improve the education quality given in schools, Harvard professor and economist Roland Fryer wants to fast track a similar process, while cutting out the middle man. Because really, why pay the messenger more when the recipient can barely read?

Fryer believes offering students cash incentives in exchange for high grades could work as an effective catalyst in jump starting the nation’s suffering early education.  Test programs have been established in Chicago, D.C., and New York, paying out up to $500 for high scores in standardized tests, as well as $50 per “A” in the classroom.  He explained the workings and the rationale behind the program on The Colbert Report this past Monday:

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Fryer’s theory seems to be pretty legit. After all, if kid’s today are being brought up to be ferociously money hungry and slaves for the bi-weekly paycheck for the rest of their life, what other preparatory method could be more appropriate?

InBev Buy Out Anheuser-Busch: Different Bud/Stella Beer, Same Cool-Piss Refreshment

Two of the (arguably) world’s most well-known pilsners are coming together in the same six-pack. And chances are, you won’t even taste the difference.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported the aquisition of Anheuser-Busch, brewer of red-neck American favorite Budweiser and , by Belgium’s InBev. If you’re a world traveler, or some pseudo-Euro hipster trying to appear trendy to their friends, you’ll know that InBev’s beer-de-force is Stella Artois: light, crisp, refreshing, and owning a cute reputation of being the beer of choice for wife-beating men.

OK, so Bud and Stella do have something in common.

The estimated $52 billion price tag would place beers such as Michelob, Bass, and Busch under the same roof. Although seemingly unprecedented due to the synonymous relation of Anheuser to “the American beer”, mergers between The Miller Brewing Company and South African Breweries in 1999, or
the Adolph Coors Company and Molson of Canada in 2005 does not make this deal necessarily the first.

Many Americans have spoken out against the merger, including Barack Obama and John McCain, who’s wife Cindy is chairwoman to a large Anheuser-Busch distribution company. More importantly, America’s favorite patriot, Stephen Colbert, delivered a tirade of his own last night, and is below for your viewing pleasure:

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South Africans Pronounce New Black is Yellow?

Finally, my attempts at gansta-isms and excessive displays of bling bling are now socially acceptable … in South Africa. BBC News reports nearly 200,000 South African Chinese have been reclassified as black, to allow them to “benefit off government policies aimed at ending white domination in the private sector”.

Just like the Chinese : when there’s a dollar to be made, we’ll do anything to get it. Even turn black.

The news of South African reclassification made it to the Colbert Report “The Word” segment, which is embedded below for your viewing pleasure.