Obama inserts himself into more than just Presidential bios
Entries Tagged as 'trusted media & news'
The plague of lolz
March Madness concludes, an event handled something like an outbreak of typhus in workplaces across the country; treated with quarantine and let to run its course. Recent racial tensions notwithstanding, it culminated in a charmingly integrated riot. But if it weren’t the parade of paid amateurs in their skivvies, it would be some other diversion; perhaps the buttons on our shirts or better, the buttons on Kim K’s shirt. Are the flags still at half-staff? Must be for Whitney, national treasure that she was. It couldn’t be that there are caskets burdened with the bits of American soldiers pouring into New Jersey as they have never been lowered for that yet. There is a drought across the nation. It is a drought not of water, though that, too. What we thirst for, seek and find absent in every dusty bucket on every rusted hook is seriousness for the serious matters; sobriety in the face of sobering events. We desperadoes are a small and vilified minority. Instead of frank discourse we meet the mouthpieces of vested interests or free-lance mouthpieces without portfolio who, on speculation, ape the paid press agents. For any who question the state of affairs, whether it is the public debt or private vice there is one ready rejoinder with all the insight and subtlety of a vuvuzela; lol. [Read more →]
“Avengers Assemble” #1: Mainstream comics creators really have no idea what’s going on anymore.
Have you heard about the new “Avengers Assemble” #1? On March 13, USA Today had a big preview that is sure to whet your appetite for… well, um, more of the same. At least, if the cover is to be believed:
Obviously the first question when looking at this stupid image is, Why is Captain America leaping off from Hulk’s crotch? Hulk has a super crotch, I’m sure, so it would take a lot to injure him, but Captain America has super feet, so there’s still a chance for injury.
The second question is, Haven’t I already seen this image before, about a million times already, including within the last year, on a comic book that made national headlines? [Read more →]
Justice for Trayvon Martin
There has been a spark in Florida. Whether it proves igniting depends on the condition and volume of the available fuel. It has been hot and dry across the nation for some time so we should be cautious with cigarette butts and any other sort of burning. In that case, maybe Al Sharpton should have stayed home. Too late for that now. He has broken out the tropical suits and the high-humidity hair treaments. Rev Sharpton has been one of the leading voices championing Justice for Tayvon as this movement is aptly known, calling for patience and support for the Martin family as they brace for the possibly imminent arrest of their son. [Read more →]
Are you frightened by the frighteningly commonplace Choking Game epidemic? You should be — just look at the numbers
Today, Yahoo had a link on their main page to an alarming Time story about an alarming trend — actually, it’s more like an epidemic! — of children (who are our future and our most precious resource) asphyxiating themselves in an effort to achieve a “high,” to just feel something in this callously dull world. This deadly dangerous activity goes by many names, but the most alarming by far is “The Choking Game,” and only the most naive among you don’t believe it’s already infected your community.
Researchers at The Crime Victims’ Institute at Sam Houston State University surveyed 837 students at a Texas university and found that the behavior, which works by cutting off blood flow to the brain in order to induce a high, was frighteningly commonplace:
•16% of students said they’d played the game, and three-quarters more than once
•On average, students first played the game at age 14
•Males were more likely to have played than females
•90% of students who had played the game learned about it from friends, and most students said they first played in a group
16% of a group of 837 students at one Texas University might have choked or hyperventilated themselves at some point in the past. And three-quarters of those might have done it twice!
That is “frighteningly commonplace” (by the way, emphasis added, because, see below)! That’s practically everybody!
It turns out that The Choking Game is a crisis that media outlets have been trying to manufacture for some time. With limited success, because today was the first I’d ever heard of it — now, of course, I’m panicked. [Read more →]
The Amazing Race
In December of 2010 my car was stolen from a packed pay lot on a Thursday afternoon. The cops thought it a routine event, and to them it was. The sentiment was that most likely it would turn up in a day or so, probably that very evening. As it happened it was a couple weeks before it was identified, chased and destroyed as a result. The offender, a Marcus Jones, 24 years old, drove my Jeep squarely into a light pole and grabbed his girlfriend’s five month old daughter to use as a human shield, leaving the mother at the scene with an impressive cache of marijuana and cocaine. He was apprehended but claimed to be an innocent bystander who had picked up the abandoned baby on this night of icy, driving winds. That diversion failed, as did his first attempt at legal defense. He told the court he was hearing voices. The State shrinks called BS on that. He complains that he is suicidally depressed, as well he may be, now facing some twenty charges including kidnapping and the considerable weight to his conscience added by the fact that the child in question is permanently paralyzed from her injuries and facing her second birthday in a few months’ time. Monday morning he will either plead guilty and receive his sentence or plead not guilty and receive a trial. I will attend. The grave nature of the baby’s injuries have been reported in no media I can find. A functionary of the Atlanta prosecutors’ office told me of the sad fact while informing me of the court date and their desire for my presence to add, however sparsely, to the bill of atrocities laid on this career criminal. All the parties involved, probably including the judge, are black. [Read more →]
Deaf man talking
As the vast majority of Americans have never been polled, so the vast majority of Americans have never made their viewing or listening habits public knowledge through the ratings systems. In radio there is Arbitron and in TV, the Nielsens. The politicians and their staffs live and die by the polls as the professional talkers go on air and off by the ratings, just ask Keith Olberman (if you can find him). The dealers in brouhaha, have a moist, delicious controversy on their plates. The most coveted delicacy, a Rush of Limbaugh seems to be within reach of their forks, knives and fingers. Who could expect them not to tuck in? The implements for cracking the shell and exposing the delicious Limbaugh underneath are many but one is foremost. The ratings and for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks and Mitt Romney is hurtling towards Washington; it’s where the money is.
A Cenk Uygur is on the case. Heck, they all are, but this character who could not reveal his Easter Island head in public if we didn’t know where Mohammed Atta is, shows up foremost on Bing. Statistically you are unlikely to know the name as this Delta smelt of media barely registered in the ratings system when he was on MSNBC of which you may also be blissfully ignorant. The Young Turk has landed on his feet after being replaced by Al Sharpton. He has, like Olberman and Algore, carved out a place for himself on the internets at CurrenTV, from which perch he assails Limbaugh’s much vaunted audience claims as phony-baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n roller codswallop. Since this is an attempt at media nose-punching we should weigh in the contenders. Uygur asserts that he and Limbaugh may well be in the same class. He refers us to his youtube channel where, at my viewing, nearly all the vids have almost exactly 300 pageviews with one exception. His manly challenge to Rush has ten thousand. [Read more →]
The AP uses high quality journalism to prove that you needn’t worry about drones
The United States of America, the world’s greatest force for good, has lately been using drones to bomb the crap out of Muslims in the Middle East. Drones are especially convenient tools because they are light, maneuverable, and unmanned. The government — the government that works for me, and you (if you’re an American), and does what it does for your benefit — has only increased the number of drones it’s used in those areas in which it is fighting kinetic military actions.
Some people have expressed concern that these drones that we’re using to bomb the crap out of Muslims aren’t only hitting those that our government has deemed to be the *bad* ones. Official numbers are difficult to come by, because they don’t exist, but some have estimated that, well, a significant number of innocent, non-terrorist Muslims, have been killed in drone strikes.
Well, the Associated Press has used some impressive journalism to discover that those people are full of beans. [Read more →]
