Recently in Media Stupidity Category

It's Getting Harder And Harder To Defend Them

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Actual headline on the Fox News Channel, about five minutes ago:

What Can You Do To Protect Yourself From Vampire Bats?

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So I'm watching the Train Wreck de France, and one of their recurring commercials is for Bridgestone Tires' new 'run-flat' thingamajig. It shows some guy in a nice BMW screaming down the autobahn when he runs over a board with a four-inch nail in it. Blah blah blah, yada yada yada, and the guy's glad he's got new Bridgestone run-flats which allow him to (per the small print) "drive at 50mph or less for 50 miles or less."

How the commercial ended: The guy continues screaming down the autobahn. Cue the world's worst commercial music (think the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on LSD trying to sing, oh, I don't know, some really teeth-grating aria).

How the commercial should have ended: The guy continues screaming down the autobahn... until his overstressed run-flat tire fails spectacularly, sending him into a bridge abutment at 200kph.

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On the one hand, Newsday said:

Organizers said Live Earth was the largest musical event ever held, as well as the biggest green event of any kind. [emphasis added]

On the other hand, ABC said

Live Earth's goal was to raise awareness and fight global warming. But with millions of fans attending nine shows across the world and generating more than 1,000 tons of garbage, the green concert has received mixed reviews.

This morning, people are wondering if a concert aimed at raising global awareness actually caused more global damage. One estimate said 100,000 trees needed to be planted to offset the carbon emissions released during the 24-hour event.
and dose.ca added
In Britain, tabloid News of the World also pointed out the hypocrisy of some performers, including Madonna, who has nine houses, a fleet of cars and a private jet, which makes her carbon footprint an estimated 100 times larger than the average Briton's.

So let's keep those 'awareness' concerts coming. At the rate they're going, by Live Earth V, we can have seaside concerts from Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Paris!

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This Would Make Scott Petersen A Trendsetter

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I saw this caption on Fox News, about 7:15 AM Eastern Time:

20% Of Pregnant Women Are Murdered

At least that's how it read from across the workout room. So I got off the elliptical machine and walked over to the TV. The caption still read

20% Of Pregnant Women Are Murdered
so I guess they'll be a reduced need for OB-GYNs in the future.

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Miss USA's pratfall was clearly faster than gravity. It must have been perpetrated by a controlled demolition, possibly by explosives in her shoes.

I blame George Bush.

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Domestic Balance Sheet

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So I read somewhere (can't remember, maybe I'll link it if I do) that a stay-at-home mom is 'worth' over $130K per year in the services she provides. Before I get into this, I want to point out that flower_goddess was a stay-at-home mom for most of our son's life, and I am damn A) glad that she wanted to do it, and B) grateful that we are in a position financially that we could afford for her to do it.

But these "economic impact of [thing/concept] is X dollars" stories bother me, and it's generally because I think they're mostly BS, in much the same way that the stories about American business losing godzillions of dollars of productivity due to water-cooler discussions and pool betting on the Super Bowl/NCAA Tournament/World Series/whatever are mostly BS.

Of course stay-at-home moms perform a lot of critical services around the home. That's their JOB. But if you want to start playing the economic value game, be careful - to be fair, you'll need to include the value of services provided by the father/husband:

  • lawn care
  • vehicle maintenance (yes, the first two items are a homage to Tim Allen)
  • exterminator
  • handyman
  • moving-heavy-stuff-around guy
  • garbageman
  • home security service

No, it's not going to total $130K. Given that under this paradigm, the man is the breadwinner, it had better not!

OK, I Give Up.

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Apparently Britney's back in rehab. Again.

I'll be tracking her status on the sidebar for the immediate future.

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To the surprise of precisely no one, Hollywood saw another chance to stick it to President Bush and jumped on it; hence, the Dixie Chicks' five Grammys (Grammies?).

Noted.

But since one of those was for Best Country Something-or-other, somebody needs to tell the NARAS that the Dix have said that they aren't even a country band anymore!

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And Make Sure Madonna Stays There, Too

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If Gwyneth Paltrow associates with British folks as smart as the ones I worked with, and compared them to the average Hollyweirdo she hung out with, then her conclusion is perfectly reasonable, if somewhat narrow-minded.

She's welcome to do her part to raise the collective American IQ by staying in London.

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I'm Alfred E. Newman, And I Approved This Message

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Vanity Fair, mostly known as "Proof James Wolcott Has A Goat Picture Of The Vanity Fair Board Of Directors," has produced a fake Weekly Standard cover flap that proves mainly that they can match fonts. It sure doesn't look very funny:

OK, Fine, We Admit It: The Iraq War Was A Mistake
And George W. Bush Is So Stupid It Scares Even Us

Brit Hume
50 things Michael Moore was right about

. . .

Fred Barnes
on the joys of not wearing pants

Hoo, boy, somebody stop them! Seriously, guys, this kind of fold-over wasn't funny when I was a kid reading Mad.

Naturally, Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder squirms with delight over it:

The October Vanity Fair has an excellent, very SPY-like prank to anger and befuddle readers of the buffoonishly hawkish Weekly Standard. Just cut out the fake cover flap and glue it onto a newsstand copy of the Weekly Standard, then step back to observe the blood vessels burst on the foreheads of the neocons who see it.

[Checking myself for aneurysms... nothing. Lame attempts at humor don't have much impact on my blood pressure.]

Hell, I can do that for VF, just funnier (although I'll leave the font-matching to somebody else):

First Peek: Airbrushed Pregnant Ann Coulter Naked!

GEORGE W. BUSH: How Come This Mental Defective Keeps Outmaneuvering Us?

Human-Like Creatures Discovered In American Interior
Apparently These Things Live In The Vast Wasteland Between The Coasts
Almost Like Us Except For Primitive Supernatural Beliefs

JAMES WOLCOTT Sneers At Everything Outside Manhattan

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