Lou Dobbs to Quit CNN

From the Times, Lou Dobbs to Quit CNN.

This is excellent news. Dobbs was a bigoted clown and a public embarrassment. He deserves to be on Fox, he's so biased and bad. [Spitting sound]

Update: The Onion, for the win: U.S. Deports Lou Dobbs: CNN Host Had Been Living Illegally In Country Since 1961

Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.

Monkeys? Robots?

From today's Science Times: Monkeys Control a Mechanical Arm With Their Thoughts. Monkeys? Robots? All we need are clowns and we got a trifecta!

Andrew W. K. about the McLaughlin Group

This is why the Internet was created. This is a video from Slate explaining how weird the McLaughlin Group is and - using Internet cartoon magic - debuts a song by Andrew "Party Hard" W.K. about said group.



Note, my family used to watch the McL group every week starting from the early 80s. Even back then I thought McLaughlin was insane. Years later, I discovered that McL was Nixon's personal minister (or something like that). Freak.

(h/t Yglesias)

Good New Yorker Funnyness

Great humor piece in this week's New Yorker by some dude named 'Yoni Brenner'. Note the gratuitous use of monkeys.

The author is probably this guy, because he can write this about himself:

When I first decided to enter the priesthood, believe me, I lot of people told me I couldn't do it. "You're too young," they said, "You're Jewish," they jeered, "You're a woman!" they cried. And then they would say, "Oh, sorry," and, "You were far away, we couldn't tell," and, "You've got to admit, you've got a really high voice." But naysayers be damned, I did it.

Quick Comedy Point

I try to study the nature of comedy (why? funny you should ask...). Not only have I been listening to comedy albums for 20 hours a day every day this week, but I read comedy books to relax. I have wondered, scientifically and psychologically, whether there are certain concepts that are inherently funny, such that you can use one of these concepts in a live and get a guaranteed laugh.

I remember a Dilbert comic strip that dealt with this concept. In quick Google search I came across, surprise surprise, a Wiki article on this topic! Topic: "Inherently Funny Word."

According to the Wiki, the Dilbert was 12-21-1989 and the words are: "chainsaw, weasel, prune, and any reference to Gilligan's Island."

My list?

1. Monkeys
   
2. Clowns (not an actual clown - which are just creepy - but the concept of a clown)
   
3. Animals doing human things
   
4. Cheese

As such, one of the funniest images should be: "a monkey in a clown suit eating cheese."

Hee hee hee.

Update: For proof of part of my point, see the most recent Onion's "What do you think?" column (the third joke).

The Travesty of Justice

TPM's Paul Kiel gives a rundown of who has resigned at the Dept. of Justice recently. The following is my editing of his data:

1. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, 8/27/07.
   
2. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, 5/14/07.
   
3. Acting Assoc. AG, William Mercer (the Dept. #3), withdrawing from the nomination 6/22/07
   
4. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, 3/13/07.
   
5. Department White House liaison, Monica Goodling, 4/6/07
   
6. Michael Elston, McNulty's chief of staff, 6/15/07
   
7. Executive Director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys Michael Battle, mid-February.
   
8. Bradley Schlozman, an attorney in the Counsel to the Director staff at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, formerly the U.S. attorney for Kansas City and a former acting assistant attorney for the Civil Rights Division, mid August.
   
9. Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division Wan Kim, 8/23/07
   

To recap: The AG, his chief of staff, his 2 senior deputies, and other heads of offices. Resigned. Their families must have been lonely, eh?

While the morons of the world still think that the Attorney Scandal is just an 'overblown personnel matter' - and it's not - the scandal did reveal that the DOJ is filled to the gorge with incompetents, blind ideologues, and scoundrels.

It's hard to explain to the detached American voting public - whose brains seem stuck on an endless TiVo loop of monkeys in clown suits - that this is a bad thing. But the department of Justice is important. More important than American Idol and Paris Freakin' Hilton, if you can imagine.

Not Only Me

It appears that I'm not the only one who thinks Jonah Goldberg is an idiot. Isaiah Berlin has my back (from Andrew Sullivan ):

"'Evil is rarely defeated by people who are unsure they are right,'
- Jonah Goldberg, on conservatism of doubt.

'To realise the relative validity of one’s convictions’, said an admirable writer of our time, ‘and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.'
- Isaiah Berlin, 'Two Concepts of Liberty.'"

{2009 Update: Pic from here.}

Jonah Goldberg

A friend of mine has compared my writing style and attitude to Jonah Goldberg (of the National Review). I am flattered but there is way too much to dislike about JG for me to consider it a compliment anymore. Goldberg -- and any Republican journalist who has defended this administration and this (past, yihoo) Congress -- is worthless. Even in 2004, the smarter and more honest Republicans realized how horrible things were, but as I am a generous man I can understand why and how some Republicans wanted to stick with Bush (a.k.a. Kerry?!? Barf).

However, the only people who still support the President and this Congress are either (a) being paid by the GOP (b) intellectually dishonest, (c) ideologically blind, or (d) stupid. All four possibilities make people like Jonah Goldberg worthless.

And then I saw the cover of his upcoming book. It's one of those "Liberals Are So Mean" books that the GOP Press Machine spews out. But the cover?! A disgrace:

Hillary is Hitler, no doubt. And Jonah, if he had any choice in this cover, is scum.

Update Here's the book at Amazon, if you want to verify my claim

Big Three Anchormen Leave

An AP Story (Big Three Anchormen Leave Sense of Loss) makes this low-key claim:

They were the men you could depend upon, the faces you'd see every night at dinnertime. In times of trouble, they were always there. Their words rang with authority. For a generation of television viewers, it was a role assumed by Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather. Not just anchormen, they were father figures, and their sudden absence as a regular presence after more than 20 years leaves an empty feeling.

All very true. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant NOT true. As not true as it is overblown brown-nosing.

Even if we could say that these "anchors" were actual journalists instead of glorified fashion-models, why on earth do we consider them "authorities"?

Is it because I have spent my life around college professors and Rosh Yeshivas that I place the bar too high? Is it wrong to assume that an "authority" should have above average intelligence, education and good judgment?

Rather, Brokaw and Jennings do not appear/talk/act particularly intelligent.

All three are either un- or under-educated (Jennings never graduated High School or college; Brokaw had a low C average at the University of South Dakota, and Rather has a BA from Sam Houston State Teachers College).

And they don't display good judgment - Rather is a clown, Jennings a racist, and Brokaw isn't much of anything.

Don't forget, all three came into power during an world era where any White Christian Male with all his hair and teeth could rise to the top of every profession with no competition.

The fact that the United States considers these unqualified crackers "authorities" explains why journalism has been a colossal failure since the brief Vietnam era heroism.

Pathetic.

Don't Encourage Them

Evidently some dude with too much money and way too much free time just flew around the world in an airplane - without stopping to refuel: Solitary Round-the-World Flight Concludes With Smooth Landing.

The first feeling I had when reading the account wasn't wonder, or awe, or pride in the achievement of a fellow mammal, but the disgusting realization that the pilot was trapped in a "cigar shaped" cockpit for the entire ordeal. How did eat? How did he go to the bathroom? How did he eat after he had to go to the bathroom in his, doubtless space-age, pants?

I want there to be a law that whenever some dude decides to waste his money this way, he's forced to immediately give those funds to me. I will spend it entirely on digital imaging equipment to capture my son's every move - and the world will be better and happier. Maybe I'll hire the millionaire fly-boy moron to take the pictures so he'll have something to do with his wasted life. Either way is fine with me, and with my son, who enjoys new company.

{2009 update, finally found an appropriate pic online}

Centre or Center?

As if you need more proof that the Kabbalah Center is evil, it appears that they are claiming that were they back in the time of the Shoah, they could have prevented it through the powers of [wait for it] The Kabbalah. On sale now, at the Centre.

See for yourself: Madonna's Kabbalah Center in Holocaust Row

Backpost finished 2/11/05