I don’t know if some slack-assed intern is to blame or if the producers at FOXNews are really as dumb as they seem to be, but this is just incomprehensibly stupid:

Yes, when Hillary suggested a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Barack Obama, some bumbling imbecile at FOXNews apparently thought Abraham Lincoln debated Frederick Douglass.

I don’t read Wonkette (nothing against them, I just don’t) , so tip to Yglesias.

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Filed under: Pop! Goes the Culture, Daily Rant

So I’m scanning the Times of London this morning and I see this pic of exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal:

Look familar?

Seriously, have you ever seen Taylor and Khaled in the same room together?

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Filed under: Pop! Goes the Culture

There is a new threat to the people of Venezuela: Bart Simpson.

He is a garish shade of yellow, a menace to his teachers, a constant source of anguish for his family . . . and now deemed likely to corrupt the children of Venezuela, which has banished Bart Simpson and co from the airwaves.

“It had to be taken off,” a spokeswoman for Televen, a private television station, said of The Simpsons, after receiving an order from the National Telecommunications Commission. “They consider it to be a series that isn’t appropriate for that time, because it isn’t appropriate for children.”

Ok. So maybe some of the adult themes of this prime time Sunday American staple are indeed inappropriate for 11 A.M. viewing. I am sure that the Venezuelan government will ensure that quality family programming replaces America’s most celebrated underachiever:

In an effort to maintain ratings, it will broadcast Baywatch Hawaii, the 1990s show featuring a cast of swimsuit-clad women and muscle-bound lifeguards that a group of British mothers once condemned as soft porn.

Sex + family programming? What a brilliant concept! Write PBS! We need big-breasted women running in slow-motion on Sesame Street! Adult American male illiteracy will vanish!

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Filed under: Pop! Goes the Culture, Profiles in Governance

In a post game interview, Memphis coach John Calipari said that as his team was at the free throw line — the most glaring weakness of that stellar team — approaching the end of regulation, he left it all up to the Big Guy in the sky:

Calipari tried to recapture his thoughts from the final 10 seconds of regulation. It was a religious experience.

“When Derrick went to the line, I sat there and I said, ‘Lord, if he makes these two, we’re supposed to be national champs. And if that’s your will, I’m fine with it. If he misses them, and we’re not, I’m fine with that too.’ I’m probably not supposed to say that, but that’s where I was.”

That’s right. It’s not just rap stars and boxers, anymore. Now loathsome coaches who refuse to teach fundamentals give all power to Jebus — who is most obviously a Jayhawks fan.

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Filed under: Jesus is Magic, Pop! Goes the Culture

What is scarier than an atomic bomb? Keanu Reeves with a cause.

In the upcoming remake of the Day the Earth Stood Still, the actor will step into the role of Klaatu, delivering the message that if we as a species do not act now, global warming will destroy us–changing the original agent of our destruction from war and nuclear weapons.

“The first one was borne out of the cold war and nuclear détente. Klaatu came and was saying cease and desist with your violence. If you can’t do it yourselves we’re going to do it. That was the film of that day,” Reeves explained. “The version I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it’s more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I’m a friend to the earth.”

Though I kind of doubt he used the word detente, Keanu makes sense. After all, what’s more frightening, the skin-searing, city-leveling instant death of nuclear bombs, or the idea that in 500 years time we’ll be able to walk outside without jackets in early March? EARLY March! The horror! The horror!

The new version also, perhaps unwittingly, hits the environmentalist-nail on the head, highlighting their core belief– that nature is more important than the lives of men.

On review though, this switch-over to global warming doesn’t really seem as smooth as I first thought. I haven’t read the story, nor have I watched the original movie, but it seems that the aliens in the original version had some real cause to worry about humanity engaging in ever increasingly sophisticated warfare…I mean, it is conceivable that we would one day create weapons with a range that might endanger other planets.

But global warming? Not so much. Why would aliens feel the need to regulate us destroying our own planet? It just doesn’t jibe. Unless they try to claim that humans in the future will spread the effects of global warming to affect other planets (like the way Halliburton totally caused the mars ice caps to melt).

Then again, I am trying to make sense out of a Keanu Reeves movie, which can sometimes feel like working with an alien rubik’s cube.

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Filed under: Freedom on Film, Pop! Goes the Culture

I don’t normally read advice columns, but when scanning headlines over at the Chicago Tribune, this Jerry Springer-esque header caught my attention: Son tells mom he’s having affair, puts her in the middle.

Ew.

The story isn’t nearly as interesting as the headline would suggest, but that’s to be expected from the Trib. But since I was already there, I read the following letter:

Dear Amy: I am a 12-year-old girl. I am very tomboyish and have never been attracted to boys.

I am friends with a boy; we love professional basketball and talk about it 24/7.

I think he likes me because he is always smiling and gazing at me, and he nods weirdly toward me.

I am so confused. I feel special, as if I’m the only one in the world, when I talk to him. I don’t think I like him. But I’m not sure what’s going on because I’ve been such a tomboy and haven’t been paying attention to romantic stuff. Do I like him? Does he like me? Should I just talk about the NBA and ignore everything else?

– Basketball Fan

Dear Fan: You do like your friend. He also likes you. Even tomboys get crushes on people, and whether you are attracted to boys in general doesn’t really matter right now.

You both display classic crush symptoms: non-stop talking, weird nods, feeling special and being confused about it all.

All of this is normal.

At your age, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about what the future holds. Relax, enjoy this special friendship and learn to listen closely to your own feelings. Your feelings will guide you. Even if your feelings change over the course of this friendship, that’s normal too.

And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but liking the NBA does not make you a lesbian.

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Filed under: Sexxx, Pop! Goes the Culture

A look back to a time (1989) when Flavor Flav was in Public Enemy fighting for freedom and shit– not a public embarrassment whoring himself to VH1 and shit.

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Filed under: Afternoon Dance Party, Pop! Goes the Culture

468 A.D. St. Simplicius replaces Pope Hilarius, putting an end to the papal stand-up routine.

1634 Samuel Cole flips the bird to New England puritans by opening America’s first tavern in Boston.

1791 The government finally realizes that citizens aren’t willing to fight back anymore and passes the 1st Internal Revenue Act (taxing distilled spirits & carriages)

1917 Lame–Congress passes 1st excess profits tax on corporations

1931Sweet– on this day the star spangled banner officially became our nation’s anthem.

1971 South African Broadcasting Corp lifts its ban on the Beatles, proving that yes indeed, they are more popular than Jesus and they definitely have more street cred.

1991 LAPD’s impromptu bare-knuckle boxing with Rodney King is caught on tape.

1993- society’s outcasts find a new voice when the Howard Stern radio show premiers in Boston.

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Filed under: Jesus is Magic, Pop! Goes the Culture

A nice way to start the weekend:

Via instapundit.com

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Filed under: Politics is Personal, Pop! Goes the Culture

In news sure to disappoint Asian fetishists across the country, historical documents recently unsealed by the State Department appear to chronicle Mao Zedong’s 1973 offer to send up to 10 million Chinese women to the United States during trade discussions with Henry Kissinger.

After Kissinger noted Mao was “improving his offer,” the chairman said, “We have too many women. … They give birth to children and our children are too many.”

“It is such a novel proposition,” Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing. “We will have to study it.”

Given the insight of Julian Simon that the Malthusian fear of “overpopulation” is folly, it’s easy to lament that Kissinger didn’t take Mao up on the offer. Alas, it seems unlikely the Chinese government would have bothered to consult the women themselves on what they thought of being shipped off to a foreign land like so many widgets.

And if anyone caught the horrifying 20/20 report on Premier Entertainment’s traveling “Bodies” exhibit — which recently concluded a tour at the Dome in Rosslyn, Va. — you really have to wonder if China’s official attitude toward human dignity has progressed very much in the past 35 years. As if the thriving industry in human taxidermy were not unsettling enough, ABC’s news team did yeoman’s work in tracing the bodies to their source, and finding compelling evidence that many, if not most, were actually the discarded carcasses of slain Chinese political prisoners.

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Filed under: Pop! Goes the Culture, Profiles in Governance