Good evening and welcome to tonight's edition of the The Daily Show/Colbert Report chat thread. Remember to give a shout-out to our long-time host TiaRachel who is taking a few weeks off.
Everyone is welcome to jump in and join us. Turn on the tee vee and tune into to Comedy Central...Or don't. There's always plenty of discussions that have absolutely nothing to do with the shows. Last night we had some interesting discussions about Irish cooking and blueberry pie.
Let's take a look at Jon and Stephen's guests tonight.
Tonight, Jon Stewart is interviewing retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She will be discussing the legal landscape facing President Obama. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that everyone here has heard of Justice O'Connor. The highlights are that she was the first female justice on the court. She was appointed by President Reagan in 1981 and she gained a reputation as a centrist between blocs of four conservative and four liberal justices. She was long considered the swing vote on major rulings. Importantly, she was key in upholding the key provisions of Roe v. Wade. She retired in 2005.
Her full biography is here.
Update: Justice O'Connor's website is here.
Stephen's guest is Mark Bittman, author of "Food Matters." Bittman has been in the journalism business since 1968 and has been a food writer since 1980. He is not a restaurant chef, but focuses on home cooking. His first two books were "How to Cook Everything" and "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." "Food Matters" explores the links between eating and global warming, environmental damage, and lifestyle diseases.
From Bittman's website:
And it's more than that: Food Matters presents a series of easily adaptable strategies—along with meal plans and recipes—for eating sanely, judiciously, and consciously. Eating this way will not only cut back on greenhouse gas production but will help become generally more healthy and probably lose weight.
Stephen will probably have a field day with this one, but there are links between raising livestock and environmental degradation. This from the United Nations:
29 November 2006 – Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed, according to a new United Nations report released today.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems," senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said. "Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."
Enjoy the show and I'll see you in the comments.
Update II: Vote on the Space station here. It might take a few seconds to load.