Weird wingnuttery

or (A little Powerline bashing is always a good thing)

via Ezra Klein

Powerline's Hindrocket has a strange post about an apparent error that the NYTimes made in posting its article about the pope's death. They seem to have accidentally published it before it was finished, and so it read as follows: go to the article

I don't think I understand what the big deal is. The NYTimes article is very fair ("he defied easy definition: For all his conservatism on social and theological issues, he was decidedly forward-looking"), and Powerline's statement that they had their criticism ready to go, but had to go looking for a good quote is speculative at best. The only thing, in fact, that is clear is that the NYTimes intended to present more than one side. In the context of Heather's post below about the Washington Times' one-sidedness below, Hindrocket just looks like he's trying to pick a fight.

Michelle Malkin cites it as an example of how

The death of the Pope just couldn't stop the libs in the media from showing their true colors.

What are their true colors? That they wanted to make sure they had a quote from a supporter? Those crazy liberals, always trying to be fair...

T

The Simpsons/There's Something About Marrying

Video

There's something that's been kind of weird since the airing of the Simpsons last Sunday. The relative silence. With all the hullabaloo surrounding SpongeBob, Buster the Bunny, and even Shrek 2, The lack of complaining about a primetime show that depicts gay marriage in any form from the likes of the PTC. Pat Robertson, and the TVC has been quite unusual. I haven't heard the trumpets of doom and gloom really that's usually associated to this kind of display. The only negative mention that I found after googling the episode came from the NYTimes(maybe you can find a few more):

"L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Parents Television Council, criticized “The Simpsons” for addressing the issue of gay marriage, though he said that he had not seen the episode.

“At a time when the public mood is overwhelmingly against gay marriage, any show that promotes gay marriage is deliberately bucking the public mood,” he said."

That's an erroneous statement of course, and I find it disingenuous when he said he hasn't seen it when I'm sure his denizens have watched it many times. Why the silence? Are the Simpsons too powerful a show to try and demonize? A reader sugests that because it's on FOX, the evangelicals have backed off. Silence on the Jeff/Jim senario as well.

PTC has nothing on their homepage. Focus on the Family has nothing either.

(graphic via SBS U Texas)

This sounds like a horror movie. Only in Texas, my friends:

Pesky Ants Becoming Zombies That Die

Some researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants -- parasitic flies that turn the pesky insects into zombies whose heads fall off. "It's a tool. They're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas. The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.

So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas, where fire ants cost the economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves. The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs, and then the maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain. Later, the ant gets up and starts wandering for about two weeks, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin...read on

Emailer Tom writes: Hi John, I can't help but think there is a connection to Washington in here somewhere.

There's a lot of places I could go with this one, but I'll leave it up to you.

Monkeyfister: While waiting for G-Dub's promised prayers to roll down to the tornado-stricken Mid-South, MF has some more practical suggestions for those who'd like to provide some human aid.

State of the Day: Super Tuesday's alternative storyline

Our Future: Mythbusting Canadian Health Care: -- Part 1

Collateral News: Cablegate

Beat the Press: Let's give the Banks lots of money

HOLY CRAP: Do you support separation of chiurch and state and religious liberty? ..The third and, God willing, final edition of 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism..."God's Profits" at stake, Televangelist Copeland vows to fight Senate tax probe...A weird hermit, writing about his visions in a cave one hundred years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, will sway a lot of Republican voters this year...Our congress takes care of the IMPORTANT stuff...A certain "dangerous cult" recently Google bombed...Church of Reality...Admitting you have no religion is not politically correct...Plain religious stupidity

Jon Stewart has described the media’s style of pack journalism many times with the same analogy: 8-year-olds playing soccer. As Stewart describes it, there’s a weird clump of legs, all moving in the same direction. Suddenly the kids see a ball rolling, and the weird clump converges on it in an awkward, graceless, and rather amusing fashion.

As Stewart sees it, reporters are the kids and news stories are the ball. Chris Hayes, displaying why he’s as good a political analyst as anyone I can think of, explains the psychology of the political press in a great item, written after last night’s debate in New Hampshire.

Reporting at event like this is exciting and invigorating, but it’s also terrifying. I’ve done it now a number of times at conventions and such, and in the past I was pretty much alone the entire time. I didn’t know any other reporters, so I kept to myself and tried to navigate the tangle of schedules and parking lots and hotels and event venues. It’s daunting and the whole time you think: “Am I missing something? What’s going? Oh man, I should go interview that guy in the parka with the fifteen buttons on his hat.” You fear getting lost, or missing some important piece of news, or making an ass out of yourself when you have to muster up that little burst of confidence it takes to walk up to a stranger and start asking them questions.

Of course, it’s amazing work. But I realized for the first time yesterday, that this essential terror isn’t just a byproduct of inexperience. It never goes away. Veteran reporters are just as panicked about getting lost or missing something, just as confused about who to talk to. This why reporters move in packs. It’s like the first week of freshman orientation, when you hopped around to parties in groups of three dozen, because no one wanted to miss something or knew where anything was.

The reporting that emerges from this is, to put it mildly, unhelpful. Read the rest.

Well, no one wants to say it but you will be reading this shortly: The Golden Globes and the Academy Awards will be cancelled.

On Monday December 17th, the WGA turned down requests for waivers by the Oscars and the Golden Globes to put those telecasts on air without the Guild’s writers. With the rejection of the waivers for the Academy Awards (ABC), set for Sunday February 24th, and the much faster approaching Golden Globes (NBC), set for January 13th, the WGA has essentially cancelled both awards shows by its actions.

The SAG Awards did receive a waiver and are scheduled for Jan. 27th.

But the other two awards shows will be cancelled and no one or should I say everyone in the industry is avoiding the mention of this 600 pound LaMotta because a) they are holding out the now near impossible hope for a settlement and b) no one wants to interrupt the cash flow from the media promotions of the potential nominees.

That is unless they want to go the route of the People’s Choice Awards which announced it will air its show Jan 8th (CBS) in a 2 hour “magazine” format of prerecorded videos and no audience yet featuring Queen Latifah as the prerecorded "host."

The Oscars and the Golden Globes will not play that game.

Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said, “It’s very difficult for me to envision that we would follow the model.”

Continue reading »

Mark Moford at CommonDreams.

(Side note: I just love this one weird little cognitive study sent to me by a friend recently; it claims that spending a mere 20 seconds on a cell phone will disrupt a child’s ability to learn for up to two hours. I mean, wow.

I do not exactly know what this means. I do not know if, after saying hi to grandma on the Nokia, the kid starts drooling and stuttering and suddenly wants to vote for Mitt Romney, or if she suddenly can’t walk, or learn advanced calculus, or solve world hunger.

What the study fails to mention, of course, is that watching five minutes of “American Idol” will set your kid’s brain back six years, or that bible camp will likely stunt genital development for 20 years, or that joining the Republican Party will turn the dial of your kid’s planetary awareness to that of a bedwetting homoerotically repressed 11-year-old boy, and lock it there for life. Maybe that’s an upcoming study).

In other news:

Be sure to re-visit the 10Questions website and vote for or submit the question you would like the candidates (of both or either party) to answer.

So Michael Medved, semi-famous movie reviewer and radio host, who has of late morphed into a weird "Hollywood vs. America" right-wing concern troll, has published an op-ed at Townhall that says that slavery in America just wasn't as bad as all that. No, seriously.

The entire op-ed is too long to cut and paste here, and a snippet would do it no justice. So for your amusement (or if you read the whole thing, as I did--stay away from sharp objects--revulsion), here are the bullet points upon which Medved makes his case, ironically entitled Six Inconvenient Truths:

1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.

2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic - involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today's Americans.

3. Though brutal, slavery wasn't genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.

4. It's not true that the U.S. became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.

5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.

6. There is no reason to believe that today's African Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the logic of a 29%er. And they wonder why the GOP doesn't get the African American vote.

Mahablog has more...

The gift that keeps on giving. I still support the Idahoan all the way. If you haven't heard this weird voicemail--here you go.

Download | play

Jeralyn has the transcript and more....

Yahoo:

The Republican senators expressed relief Thursday that embattled Sen. Larry Craig has signaled he is highly likely to surrender his seat within a few weeks rather than fight to complete his term. Craig's departure, perhaps as early as Oct. 1, would enable Republicans to sidestep one of the several ethics dilemmas they face, and avoid the embarrassment of dealing with a colleague who had been stripped of his committee leadership posts and urged to resign by party leaders.

The Heretik notes class acts, conspiracy theories, weird science, monumental ego, strange priorities, odd numbers, and government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth. Thank you all.

Don Davis of the Satirical Political Report is up tomorrow as host of the Mike's Blog Round Up. Send links to Don at ddavis AT egsllp DOT com