Humor

Shortly after noon today, during a story about actress Lindsay Lohan's latest legal woes, some footage of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) made it into the B-roll loop.

A case of some "Mean Girls" in the editing room, or just an innocent mix-up? I think it's the latter [h/t Tim Graham and Yahoo's Holly Bailey]:

Washington Post humorist Gene Weingarten is working in his hatred for conservatives in his Sunday Post Magazine column. The column is mostly a whimsical review of a George Bernard Shaw play and how Britain in Victorian times had a very uptight morality, and characters like pimps could only be portrayed as "loathsome deviants who would roast in Hell." Then he veered into this digression:

This sort of unwritten literary convention may seem quaint today, but such subtle rules are still practiced. For example, American journalists know they can write about the Tea Party, but only if it is presented as a serious ideological movement instead of as a posse of ignoramuses carrying signs such as the one in the second photo on this page [above].

On Wednesday, MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show briefly mislabeled Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser as the state's governor, Bobby Jindal:

 

DINO or RINO couldn't happen to a nicer one.

Holder can't say radical Islam a possible reason for attempted bombing in Times Square, but CAN say that the AZ law is evil without even reading it.

Where does he rank on the "Inept Meter?"

The funny folks at BulletPeople.com have made another satirical gem. This time they go after the absurd wasteful spending taking place in the name of the Census:

For some shocking details on the 2010 Census, make sure you read this post at the Eyeblast blog.

Hosting a debate segment this morning between  Republican strategist Alex Conant and Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee that examined the political dimensions of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, MSNBC's Tamron Hall played soundbites from two politicians with rather divergent views on offshore drilling.

The first was liberal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) opposing expanding offshore drilling to California, the second was conservative Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who gave a rather dopey comment where he downplayed the devastation of the oil spill by comparing its appearance to "chocolate milk."

After playing those clips back-to-back, Hall asked for Conant's reaction, mistakenly referring to Taylor as a Republican.

We at NewsBusters quickly tweeted Hall about her error and she promptly issued an on-air correction, albeit mistakenly tagging Taylor as a "Michigan Democrat" [MP3 audio available here]:

Don't look for the leak to be capped any time soon.

At the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night, President Barack Obama mocked CNN’s Rick Sanchez for saying Iceland is “too cold” for a volcano, a remark launched into the blogosphere by NewsBusters (April 15 NB post with video) and which prompted Sanchez, who insisted he was joking, to put NB post author Matthew Balan at the “very top” of his “List U Don't Want 2 Be On.” (April 19 NB post with video)

Obama’s joke centered on his bad opening day “first pitch” at the Washington Nationals game. He displayed how FNC described his pitch, “President Panders to Far Left of Batters Box,” and MSNBC’s on-screen graphic under Keith Olbermann: “President Pitches No-Hitter.” The President then played the real video from CNN of Sanchez, and then, generating laughter from the DC audience, quipped: “I guess that’s why they’re the most-trusted name in news.”

Our national symbol is now an ill eagle.

UPDATE: WaPo's ombudsman claims this photo was a hoax.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't make me say the R-word. (h/t Gawker via Mary Katharine Ham)

Some Saturday night humor. File under Things a Journalist Should Be Too Embarrassed to Cite. In her weekly Washington Post column published on Monday about the impact of the ash emitted by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland which shut down European airplane flights, “Nature hoists Europe back in time,” Warsaw-based Anne Applebaum included this sentence about reaction to the volcanic eruption:

A British friend sees this as “judgment for the bad things we have done to the Earth.”

Applebaum is a veteran journalist, serving as Warsaw correspondent for The Economist, foreign editor and deputy editor of the Spectator magazine in London and the Evening Standard's political editor, before becoming an editorial writer for the Post and, since 2006, a columnist.

Last Thursday, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, the network's Mr. Wizard, suggested Iceland shouldn't have a volcano: "You think it's too cold to have a volcano there." On Friday, Sanchez followed up with these:

"Here's what I don't get about DVDs -- how are you supposed to rewind them?"

"....Why is it you can sometimes see the moon in the sky during the day, but you never see the sun at night?"

Actually, he never said those things. We just want to get on his stupid "List U Don't Want 2 Be On" again.

Last Thursday, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, the network's Mr. Wizard, suggested Iceland shouldn't have a volcano: "You think it's too cold to have a volcano there." Today, Sanchez followed up with this:

"Right now we're looking at a beautiful aerial shot of the stark, snow-covered mountains of Greenland. Which actually surprised me, because when you think of a place named Greenland, you think of warmth and trees and meadows and things like that, right? You don't think of ice and snow and cold weather. But no! There it is.”

Actually, he never said that. We just want to get on his stupid "List U Don't Want 2 Be On" again. 

 

Today is Earth Day so lets celebrate by watching some crazy hippies cry and scream about trees being cut down:

In response to CNN anchor Rick Sanchez lunging onto the air to defend his quote-unquote "joke" when he suggested it was strange to discover a volcano in a cold place, NewsBusters has decided to spend a few days presenting other episodes of scientific genius we might see from CNN's Mr. Wizard in the months and years to come during Rick's List in the afternoon. Here's one:  

"We have some new pictures of our planet from the space shuttle and well, look at that. It's actually round. You know, when I walk around outside, the world seems pretty flat. When you think of the Earth, you think of a flat disc, you don't think of a sphere. But no! There it is."

Happy Tax Day!  :)

Britain's left-of-center daily - "The Guardian" - has reported that former international environmental lawyer Polly Higgins has launched a new campaign urging the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to deem environmental damage on par with genocide and crimes against humanity in international courts.

"Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute ‘climate deniers' who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change," Juliette Jowit, "Guardian's" environmental editor wrote April 9.

"Higgins makes her case for ecocide to join that list with a simple equation: extraction leads to ecocide, which leads to resource depletion, and resource depletion leads to conflict. ‘The link is if you keep over-extracting from your capital asset we'll have very little left and we will go to war over our capital asset, the last of it,' adds Higgins, who has support in the UN and European commission, and among climate scientists, environmental lawyers and international campaign groups."

Among the "10 reasons why we need ecocide as the 5th international Crime Against Peace" on Higgins' "Thisisecocide" website, number five states "action can be taken against any individual. As an international crime against peace, no-one escapes liability" (emphasis theirs).

Everyone knows Fox isn't "the most trusted name in news," so who is? You guessed it - and at least one media tycoon agrees. Speaking at the University of Missouri as a guest-lecture, Craig Newmark - Craigslist founder and informal Obama technology-advisor - argued that Comedy Central is the most trustworthy news source.

Invited to discuss the future of journalism - where individuals virtually have an endless amount of resources in today's era of new media - Newark stressed how trust and credibility was paramount, emphasizing the exemplary dedication Comedy Central shows have for investigative reporting and fact-checking.

"[R]ight now I think the most trusted news show in the U.S. is the one that does the best investigative reporting and the most trustworthy reporting - and that's ‘The Daily Show,'" Newark said - and he wasn't joking. "Sounds like a joke - isn't."

In case you missed it -- and you may well have as the mainstream media aren't making hay out of it* -- yesterday President Obama completely flubbed a softball question tossed by a sports announcer (via RealClearSports):

Rob Dibble asks Obama who one of his favorite White Sox players was while growing up in Chicago. Obama stumbles and avoids the question. Maybe he misheard the question or maybe he was acting like a typical politician and avoiding the question because he didn't have an answer.

Mark Levin picked up on the incident at the start of his April 5 program. You can hear audio of that here, courtesy of Levin's producer, Richard Semanta.

Most observers, even the giddiest of Barack Obama boosters, will agree that baseball is not the president's forte.

[Heck, he can't name any of his favorite White Sox players.]

"High and to the left," it seems, is an accurate description not only of the cost and philosophical direction of ObamaCare but also of Obama's opening pitch yesterday at Nationals Park.

Yet at least one journalist, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, was insanely delicate in his euphemistic description yesterday of Obama's ceremonial toss as a "looping, carefully lofty first pitch."

The way D.C.'s home team played yesterday, perhaps Fineman can get a PR/spin doctor job with the Nats should Newsweek ever lose the 100 subscribers that are keeping it afloat.

The folks at BulletPeople take a poignantly satirical look at Obamacare through the lens of the launch of the new Apple iPad. What would an oPad look like?

An April Fools prank designed to trick bloggers into running with a contrived story ended up snaring the Gray Lady.

New York attorney Eric Terkewitz told his blog's readers on April 1 that he had been hired as the White House's "official law blogger." Unlike the political bloggers at which the stunt was aimed, the New York Times apparently did not check the claim, and posted the story to its website.

The incident serves as a reminder that, as journos like to say, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out."

Just another sign that the media just don't get religion. Here's the ABCNews.com headline for an April 4 story on President Obama's attendance of Easter Sunday service at Allen Chapel AME Church in Southeast D.C.:

Of course, the term Easter Mass would connote a Catholic liturgical celebration, but the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) is a thoroughly Protestant denomination, as its articles of faith Web page makes clear.

Yesterday, Newsweek's The Gaggle blog shared with its readers video of Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., in a congressional hearing expressing his concern that expanding the U.S. military presence on Guam might cause the island to tip over:

My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.

Yet in the caption beneath the video embed, Newsweek failed to mention the party affiliation of the congressman:

Ah, good ol' Joe Biden, America's favorite uncle.

At least, the American Left's favorite, according to Newsweek's Katie Connolly in her March 30 "Web exclusive" entitled, "Say It Just So, Joe: Liberals love Joe Biden because he keeps things interesting in the White House."

Update: April Fools! Consider these "fake but accurate." Happy April Fools' Day.

The latest edition of the biweekly Notable Quotables is up at MRC.org, the Web site for NewsBusters's parent organization the Media Research Center.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, here's the media carving out a place on Mt. Rushmore for Obama and giving him two more Nobel prizes:

“You know, Keith, I really think Barack Obama could finish the year with not just one Nobel Prize, but three. This health care bill is bound to save literally millions of lives, and the legislative language itself is a masterpiece. Given the good sense of the Norwegians, I think the President could easily win the Nobels for medicine and literature this year.”  — Newsweek’s Howard Fineman to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann during live coverage of the health care bill signing, April 1.

Actually, Joe was merely channeling Nostradamus and predicting the future.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, for your amusement, film critic and liberal apologist Roger Ebert, in what I hope is an early April Fool's joke:

"Since the invention of the teleprompter, no President has needed one less than Barack Obama."

Has Ebert never heard of the infamous "corpseman" incident?

It seems like it's been quite some time since our National Endowment for the Arts has shocked the public with an outrageous grant for a ridiculous "artist" whose art flourishes only when the taxpayer is forced against his will to subsidize it. Sadly, that means these "artists" must take their talents elsewhere in search of public funding.

Subsidizing sleaze apparently is not shocking to Australia. Siobhan Duck of Melbourne's Herald Sun reports, "A television comedy about a bong-smoking dog that has sex with a cat and a teddy bear has received $1.5 million of federal and state taxpayers' money."

Wouldn't you be so proud if you were a taxpayer Down Under? The federal agency Screen Australia contributed $400,000 to the first season and $580,000 to the second. The state agency Film Victoria contributed $210,000 for the first set of shows and $294,048 towards the second.