Author: Richard

Everything news is fake

In 2004, just days before the presidential election, the CBS news with Dan Rather reported fake documents on President Bush’s National Guard service that fooled a national news organization but not a few bloggers in their pajamas.

One year and 2 weeks ago after the 2008 presidential election, the Fox News Channel was duped into reporting that an unnamed McCain campaign figure revealed that failed Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Good thing the media has learned to check its sources more thoroughly before airing these kinds of reports, right? lulz.

Fake “boy trapped in a runaway balloon” controversy fooled every single channel including the BBC.

Phony climate change press conference fools CNBC and Reuters.

Fake quotes of racism attributed to Rush Limbaugh fool NBC & CNN.

Now fake Obama thesis fools Limbaugh.

its a good time to be a hoax…

They work because they act on the principal of truthiness, or the idea that “I want it to be true, so I will choose to believe it IS true”. Dan Rather wanted President Bush to have a shady military record, Sarah Palin critics wanted her to be proved to be the yokel imbecile they assessed her as from day one,  the world wanted a boy named Falcon to be in that balloon flying out of control through the sky, CNBC wanted to hear there would be a change in policy regarding climate change, NBC wanted Limbaugh to be exposed as a filthy racist and Limbaugh wanted Obama to be exposed as a Constitution hater.

Only CNBC and Limbaugh corrected these hoaxes on air within minutes of being fooled by them. All the rest let over 24 hours pass before telling the truth.

Throat stabber notes his “concern for life”

Makes sense to me…

Jacob M. Christine says if he was slashed with a razor, he’d be happy to be slashed the way his alleged victim was.

Speaking at his preliminary hearing Thursday on charges he cut a fellow Northampton County Prison inmate across the throat, Christine insisted that the wound showed the assailant — whoever he was — took care to try to not kill.

”Whoever attacked him had a high regard for life,” said Christine, 21, who acted as his own attorney after, District Judge Gay Elwell of Easton said, he refused to request a public defender. ”Because the cut isn’t deep at all: It’s on his neck. It’s not on his face.”

This is one 21 year old who knows his anatomy. it’s a common myth that the neck is a more vulnerable place to be stabbed than the face. whenever im faced with a knife wielding attacker i always say “not the face!” and offer my throat instead not because of my vanity, but because i know that getting stabbed in or across my throat is much less life threatening than a slash across my cheek.

Besides, what about the was this 22 year old “victim”, testified he was eating dinner in his cell block June 8 when an inmate called him over to a cell and asked if he had tobacco.

this man is being unjustly charged and i think should be absolved of this crime and pardoned for the original crime that put him in prison in the first place. we need more citizens like him who show such a concern for life when they’re attacking people with razors.

FINALLY a Simpsons Halloween Special BEFORE Halloween!

AT LAST my monkey paw wish was granted! ALAS, it came with a price…

Not that big a price though. about as bad as the turkey sandwich Homer wished for being “a little dry”. For years Simpsons fans had the magic of the annual Simpsons Halloween special ruined by being too late. This year, finally that was fixed, but at the cost of it coming too early.

There have been 20 Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween Specials, and unforgivably, 8 of the most recent ones were broadcast after Halloween. I was so mad at this recent history and so pleased with the series return to sanity that I went and looked up the original airdates for every single Simpsons Halloween special. I thought it would have been slightly more spotty, but no: as you can see, the “dark age” started in the year 2000 and lasted up until last year:

  1. I · October 25, 1990
  2. II · October 31, 1991
  3. III · October 29, 1992
  4. IV · October 28, 1993
  5. V · October 30, 1994
  6. VI · October 29, 1995
  7. VII · October 27, 1996
  8. VIII · October 26, 1997
  9. IX · October 25, 1998
  10. X · October 31, 1999
  11. XI · November 1, 2000
  12. XII · November 6, 2001
  13. XIII · November 3, 2002
  14. XIV · November 2, 2003
  15. XV · November 7, 2004
  16. XVI · November 6, 2005
  17. XVII · November 5, 2006
  18. XVIII · November 4, 2007
  19. XIX · November 2, 2008
  20. XX · October 18, 2009

OUTRAGEOUS! infuriating and unacceptable. at least this generation will not have to suffer the indignity of trying to get in the Halloween spirit up to a motherfkking WEEK after the god damn holiday, and at least the 3 stories were of a Halloween nature instead of the bullshit science-fiction/just weird nature of the crap that was fed to us during the dark ages…

This years episode is below:

Maldives Cabinet Meeting underwater

Seems like kindov a big hassle just for a photo-op, but.. it worked.

Aminath Shauna, the event’s co-ordinator, said the ministers had signed their wetsuits, which would be auctioned on the protectthemaldives.com website to raise money for coral reef protection in the atoll-chain.

The government arranged a horseshoe-shaped table on the seabed for the ministers, who communicated using white boards and hand signals.

The Divers Association of Maldives said the ministers, who had trained over the past two months, felt confident about the unprecedented meeting.

Of the 14-member cabinet, three ministers did not take part in the dive, as two have a medical condition while the third is currently in Europe.

The Maldives, located southwest of Sri Lanka, has become a vocal campaigner in the battle to halt rising sea levels.

Nobel & Limbaugh vs Obama & McNabb

If its wondered aloud that the Nobel committee gave the Peace Prize to Obama because they were excited and hopeful at the US electing a black president, how is that racist? right/wrong/whatever. you discuss it, but RACIST? how? — oh. its not? then how is Limbaugh’s 2003 comment that McNabb got praised “because the media wanted a black quarterback to do well” racist?

Exactly. dumbasses. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s cool to hate on talk show hosts you don’t like all you want, it’s NOT cool to go attacking their attempt to own a small piece of a sports team and it’s not even acceptable to go smearing the hell out of someone as a “racist” over things they never said or inserting racism into statements that had, have and COULD have no racist motive.

Last Monday on The O’Reilly Factor, Detroit Free-Press columnist Drew Sharp argued that the NFL has a right to turn down a “a very polarizing, controversial figure whose occupational practice is largely predicated on making people feel comfortable with their own biases and prejudices.”

After Sharp refers to “racially tinged sound bites” that O’Reilly and his crack research team could not uncover, O’Reilly plays the comment Rush made on ESPN in 2003 regarding Donovan McNabb, then asks if it should disqualify Limbaugh from owning an NFL team. “What it does qualify him for is being a race baiter,” Sharp responds. “I do believe he throws in sound bites… strictly for effect.”

Later in the week it was revealed that those first quotes attributed to Limbaugh were made up.

Today on Reliable Sources, a CNN show I podcast, they discussed Limbaughs attempt at the RAMS:

Balloon boy and live TV do not mix

First, some background from the BBC as they insert a few “those damn crazy Americans” type jabs into this report giving a little background on the family, their weird weather hobbies, past history on Wife Swap and a summary of yesterdays saga:

During this painful-to-watch CNN interview with the family, Falcon (the balloon boy) was asked by his father Richard why he did not come out of the attic despite his parents repeatedly calling his name. Falcon answers “You guys said that … we did this for the show”, to which his dad just ignores while his mother tries to correct him and tell him “…no…”, so.. eh… wtf? If that wasn’t weird enough, the interviewer, Wolf Blitzer (lulz. Wolf asks Falcon) asks for clarity about that and the uncomfortableness goes nuclear as the father pauses, thinks how he can re-ask the question to his son, pretends to not understand the question by asking Wolf what it was again, then pausing more turning toward his son before finally saying he will not re-ask that question because of CNN’s nefarious motives he thinks are behind the question. weeeeeeird…

I have a hard time imagining someone holding a full family interview on the subject of their son just hours after they supposedly thought he was in a life threatening situation thousands of feet in the air, but they also seem pretty different in general in general so who can tell for sure.

The 911 call by the family was released. I didn’t listen to it because I don’t care, but I guess it’s worth posting. Does it sound like the family is acting or genuinely terrified? It seems really weird that if the parents were behind this as a hoax that they would let the kid go on live tv to uncover the whole thing but I guess stranger things have happened.

Police say they believe there was no hoax based on body language:

“I don’t know, after three hours of dealing with the media I couldn’t tell you what he was saying at that time or what he meant. What I can tell you is that our investigators were there from the onset, very experienced investigators,” [Larimer County Sheriff Jim] Alderden said. “They can do forensic interviews; they’re well trained at looking at body language . . . nonverbal communications to look for deception.”

Alderden says the investigators on scene believed the incident was legitimate and not a hoax even after interviewing Falcon separately from his family.

“After the boy came out they did a forensic interview with the boy just between the investigators and them and they again thought that it was a legitimate thing from his perspective,” he explained…

“Now, if this turns out to be a hoax and it can be proved that it is a hoax and criminal charges are filed certainly we would seek compensation for everybody’s effort,” Alderden said.

Should the fact that the family was pitching a reality show be factored in? I guess. but its still hard to tell wtf this means.

All I know is that this family needs to stop dragging this poor kid, who is sick (probably with swine flu) onto life TV interviews because it never goes well…

The hot air balloon boy story that wasn’t

I didn’t have any tv or radio’s on today as I was entrenched in computer work, but I saw on many websites that an omg-saga of world importance was apparently unfolding. Cable news all had live shots, seen below of a runaway and out of control UFO tinfoil laced weather balloon that everyone thought contained a 6 year old boy named… wait for it… Falcon. yes. that’s right… Except, no. that’s not right. because it didn’t. The boy was later found hiding in a kinda-sorta attic in the homes garage because he didn’t want his dad to yell at him…

Indeed, the whole thing deserves a closer look…

The 7 minute clip below is not required viewing, but the first 2 minutes have a little guilty lols in them by way of dramatic irony…

The Landing:

The…”Show”?… huh?…

The Theme Song:

Seth Green freakout video confirmed as a viral commercial

SHAME on all the douchebags who falsely accused Green of being a douchebag when they first saw the video and big-ups to ME for totally calling it as being a viral video. Well, not TOTALLY, but I gave it over 50% odds as being staged and I was right. Even if I wasn’t though, the content of the video was not sufficient enough to declare Seth another whining Hollyweirder so BAM to alla u crackas.


The video was a preview of the Butterfinger promo site dudewheresmybar.com featuring Mr Green, which – oh, look at that, I totally guessed when I originally posted this story.

Face eating chimp owner says victim was attacked on the job

“You know when my client’s chimpanzee ripped your face off? It was on the job, and is therefore a worker’s comp claim. Your argument is invalid”.

An attorney representing the owner of a chimpanzee that mauled and blinded a woman is calling the attack a work-related incident and said her family’s case should be treated like a workers’ compensation claim.

The strategy, if successful, would severely limit potential damages in the case and insulate the chimp owner from personal liability.

The 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis went berserk in February when his owner, Sandra Herold, asked her friend and employee Charla Nash to help lure him back into her house in Stamford. The animal ripped off Nash’s hands, nose, lips and eyelids, and she remains in stable condition at the Cleveland Clinic.

Nash’s family filed a $50 million lawsuit against Herold, saying she was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control “a wild animal with violent propensities.”

Due to a pending legal battle with a gang of underage prostitutes vs community action group ACORN, I am unable to take this case at this time, however i will comment that “violent and unspeakably horrible life threatening and disfiguring attacks by a domesticated primate” *was* in fact in the job description listed under “hazards and acknowledged risks” in the alleged “victims” employment in her former role of “friend who stops by the house to say hello from time to time”.