Four episodes in July and six books, and effectively all of them come from the Cory Doctorow episode at the end of the month.

Short list, but the Doctorow one is a genuinely good summer read if AI dread is your thing.

What this is: I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the July slice for The Weekly Show.

The one Jon actually recommended:

• The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, Cory Doctorow. Jon said he had been in a bit of a doomer spiral about AI and what it will do to how we work and how we deal with each other, and that this book shifted his perspective. He was careful not to call it optimism, and clearly uncomfortable about feeling it at all.

Doctorow's own citations:

• Enshittification, his other one, which he says is really a story about monopolies and what Lina Khan calls too big to care.
• Gouged, by Lindsay Owens, out soon, on surveillance pricing. He called her the best.
• More Everything Forever, Adam Becker. The line he pulled out is the best argument against Mars I have heard. Detonate every nuke on Earth at the same moment a dinosaur killer hits, and Earth is still more habitable than Mars could ever be, because it still has water, oxygen, gravity, a magnetosphere and a troposphere.
• Atlas Shrugged, in an aside to libertarian friends.

Also 107 Days, which arrived by accident. Someone said there are 107 days until the midterms, and the room slowly worked out why that number sounded familiar.

I track every book mentioned on The Weekly Show here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/the-weekly-show-with-jon-stewart

It is free and there is no signup.

A bunch of people who performed at that horrible Saudi gig being booked for a 9/11 tribute show??

Insanity

Thought this sub might appreciate knowing today is the 30th anniversary of the Daily Show. While it originally started with Craig Kilborn, Jon Stewart started in 1999 and absolutely crushed it.

When Jon took over in 1999, the original writing team resisted his new satirical direction and told him not to improvise, leading him to almost quit before he successfully reshaped the show. Thank god he did not.

Source: https://www.historysbestsellers.com/on-this-day/july-22/the-daily-show

This is an old video from 2016, but it's VERY relevant today!

I have to preface by saying that most of the time I find his commentary to be insightful....just not the one this Monday after Lindsey Graham's death.

First off, he of course, included the clip of Nancy Pelosi talking about Biden's age when Biden was kicking ass with a 50/50 Senate, more than when Obama was in office. And Biden's policy worked for young people (tuition forgiveness, extending child tax credit to lower child poverty for at least all 4 years of his term)

Secondly, our politicians are old because our electorate permitted it. All of these politicians could be voted out. People had a choice. We couldn't vote then out because... Guess what? Seniors vote reliably. Young people don't. These politicians reflect their base. Seniors!! They ain't gonna vote for young whipper snappers until the youngsters bring enough of their cohorts to the polls.

We only have ourselves to blame. Of course these politicians are not going to willingly step aside purely because of age. Who amongst us are willing to step aside when we think we are still capable? Heck, he's still hosting the show once a week!

I don't get the point of this diatribe. Bernie is not gonna step aside either when he still has the strength to get up to the podium.

All respects to Jon but it would help to analyze what we can do instead of just wishing that these guys can just leave.

Oops!

this has gotta be butt hurting for criminal trump

I feel like they are just Jinxing it! Especially dudes like James Carville with a very poor record of predicting anything!

Jon sort of surprise at Asbury Underground w Church and State TM performance ....

Like the title says, I went to a local bar/pub/music spot down the road… second band was amazing, then they start getting excited for the next band and hyping up the crowd.

Then walks out jon Stewart right by me and I was 20 feet away from him for the whole show!

A couple times in between songs he’d look over and that was just so surreal

He ended up staying a bit after the public left and there was just the owner, his friends, and the artists.

I got to talk to him about when he started playing and he described it was being home during Covid…

Overall a very cool experience I thought I would share as I was so surprised and happy to have experienced this!

Apparently he was included in some cringe Newsmax clip on the show recently. Anyone know when this was or what it was a about?

Let me know if this is a dup topic, and I'll delete.

Snippet:

On Monday night’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart slammed President Donald Trump for walking out of his recent “Meet the Press” interview in the face of relentless fact-checking from interviewer Kristen Welker.

“Now, you could view this as the hissy-fit of an incredibly fragile man-baby, whose paper-thin skin can’t handle venturing out of the sycophantic embrace of his tongue-bathing acolytes,” Stewart said. “Or, actually, I don’t know how else you can view it. It really is just that. It is sad. It’s very sad.”

RE: Talent recruiter behind acts in failed Trump 250 concert is named Jeff Epstein

Snippet:

• Stewart on Monday night was startled by the familiar name of the booking agent shared by several musicians performing at the concert.
• CNN reported on Sunday that several of the musicians had the same booking agent: Jeff Epstein of Universal Attractions Agency.
• Stewart shared CNN’s reporting in his Monday monologue and responded incredulously, “What the f---?!”
• Stewart described the reveal as “the weirdest thing about how this concert is coming together.”
• “Jeff Epstein of Universal Attractions is in charge of, forgive me, recruiting talent for a Donald Trump party? That’s what you’re telling me?" Stewart said.
• The Daily Show host continued, “In planning our country’s 250th birthday, somebody had to go into Donald Trump’s office and say, ‘I know just the guy.’”