Glenn Beck punk’s hippie bloggers with Froggate stunt

Glenn Beck, in a segment explaining why, despite his being a staunch critic of Barack Obama’s, he thinks John McCain would have been worse for the country if he had won the 2008 election, used a decidedly controversial visual aid: He tossed a frog into a boiling pot of water on his set.

The stunt was not only an effective attention grabber (had me on the edge of my seat when I watched it at home) but a clever illustration to the warning not to believe everything you hear. Beck was debunking the anecdote that “if you put a frog in boiling water, it will notice the danger and jump out, but if you put it in room temperature water and slowly boil it, it won’t notice and will die”. So Beck goes to a little childrens case of tiny pet frogs and throws one in, expecting it to jump right out and it doesn’t – to which Beck reacts by telling you to “forget about the Republicans, because most of them are fake. forget about the Democrats, because most of THEM are fake. and forget about the frog, because IT was fake”. Then after a commercial break, he fished the plastic frog out of the pot and verified that no animals were harmed during the segment.

Okay. weird. interesting. kinda cute. right?
F*ck no. There was shock and outrage – OUTRAGE I SAY!! – over Beck murdering one of these tiny little spitwads. And these are not vegan sources, thus making their outrage more than a lot hypocritical since, uh – what exactly makes killing an amphibian to illustrate a political point servicing millions of viewers worse than killing a mammal to eat or wear in service to 1? dumbdumbs…

Most of these blogs were relying on an edited youtube video of the segment that cut out Beck stating that the frog was fake. tsk tsk bloggers… Beck gladly accepted the win on his show today:

Charles Johnson of LittleGreenFootballs.com was unhappy about getting the attention over his dubious headline titled “Glenn Beck: Frog Killer” and responded to Beck showing this oops-post of his on air with an impossibly worse/more embarrassing claim: “Beck Lies about LGF“… oy… the “lie” being that Beck didn’t include that Johnson had mentioned in the LGF post that falsely call Beck a “Frog Killer” that there was a possibility that it was a trick. Charles seems to be going through a tough time in his online life as his former admirers start piling on him as he goes through a recent change of calling former colleagues and like-minds racists, liars, kooks, and more and I feel kinda bad for him but… dude… it’s not a “lie” to show that you made a false claim based on edited video you didn’t bother investigating. Ya, it would have been nice for Beck to bail Johnson out a tad and include that Johnson, after stating the false claim as fact, also showed his openness to the possibility that it was a gag, but Johnson has no reason to expect such a pass.

Wtf is wrong with this world when its right-wing leaning bloggers that erroneously freak out over animal cruelty that didn’t take place and PETA is the sane voice of calmness and reason?… yikes.

When bloggers die

I just found out that long time blogger Lee, died in his sleep while in China where he has been living for the past year. I started reading Lee’s bold take on the news in 2002 when, in a fresh-after-9/11 world, I was just starting to pay attention to politics. Lee was a conservative, operating Right-Thinking.com but later posted on other sites, including his last, LeeinChina.com which covered his exploits in the far east when he moved for work.

His partner on many projects and co-blogger Jim K, also known as the anti-Michael Moore webmaster featured in Michael Moore’s Sicko posted the sad news on Right-Thinking shortly after it happened back in April. I obviously had not kept up with Right-Thinking and just tonight read the sad news.

I’m posting this not because I think random people care that some random blogger has passed away, but because it’s a reminder that I’m going to die some time, maybe randomly like Lee (details are still unknown, but no word was given that he was ill or injured) and someone will have to post on my websites the news of my expiration for my viewers.

Unlike some bloggers who I’ve heard continueing their craft during cancer or some other terminal disease and losing the battle while still active online, Lee was just an average bloke who didn’t wake up one day.

In May the “worlds oldest blogger” died at 97 and in 2007 the wife of ColdFury blogger was killed in a vehicle accident. It’s weird… I have 10 thousand friends on Myspace and have had 3 die in the past several years. I would just visit their page and see memorial comments and tributes.  It was around then that I discovered MyDeathSpace.com which covered Myspace member obituaries (most are car accidents). It’s all very weird in the web 2.0 stage.